Asahi Award 2012 for OCARINA Professor Nobuo Kamiya
Published on Jan 11, 2013
Professor Nobuo Kamiya of the OCU Advanced Research Institute for Natural Science and Technology (OCARINA) received the prestigious Asahi Award 2012.
Professor Kamiya received the prize together with Professor Jian-Ren Shen of Okayama University for their research into photosynthesis. They clarified the molecular structure of the manganese cluster, which plays a pivotal role in the photosynthesis process of plants to make oxygen.
The annual award, presented by the Asahi Shimbun Foundation, honors recipients for distinguished achievements in academia, arts and other fields that have contributed to advancements in Japanese culture and society. The prize is considered as one of the most prestigious awards in Japan and many recipients later received the Nobel Prize or the Japanese Order of Culture.
Professor Kamiya’s research was published in the online edition of Nature in April 2011 and was selected as one of the top-10 breakthroughs of 2011 by Science.
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On this occasion of receiving this respectable prize, I look back on my past research on the x-ray crystallography of Photosystem II and see the many faces of my university professors, the superiors that let me start investigating PS II, all the people who supported my research over the years, the young people who collaborated with me, and my current colleagues, friends and family before me. The OCU Advanced Research Institute for Natural Science and Technology |