The Most Famous

BIOLOGISTS from Japan

This page contains a list of the greatest Japanese Biologists. The pantheon dataset contains 1,097 Biologists, 15 of which were born in Japan. This makes Japan the birth place of the 13th most number of Biologists behind Netherlands, and Czechia.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Japanese Biologists of all time. This list of famous Japanese Biologists is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Japanese Biologists.

1. Yoshinori Ohsumi (b. 1945)

With an HPI of 73.23, Yoshinori Ohsumi is the most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 66 different languages on wikipedia.

Yoshinori Ohsumi (大隅良典, Ōsumi Yoshinori, born February 9, 1945) is a Japanese cell biologist specializing in autophagy, the process that cells use to destroy and recycle cellular components. Ohsumi is a professor at Institute of Science Tokyo's Institute of Innovative Research. He received the Kyoto Prize for Basic Sciences in 2012, the 2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, and the 2017 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy.

2. Susumu Tonegawa (b. 1939)

With an HPI of 65.84, Susumu Tonegawa is the 2nd most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 55 different languages.

Susumu Tonegawa (利根川進, Tonegawa Susumu, born September 5, 1939) is a Japanese scientist who was the sole recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of V(D)J recombination, the genetic mechanism which produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa is a molecular biologist by training and he again changed fields following his Nobel Prize win; he now studies neuroscience, examining the molecular, cellular and neuronal basis of memory formation and retrieval.

3. Tomitaro Makino (1862 - 1957)

With an HPI of 63.79, Tomitaro Makino is the 3rd most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Tomitaro Makino (牧野富太郎, Makino Tomitarō, April 24, 1862 – January 18, 1957) was a pioneer Japanese botanist noted for his taxonomic work. He has been called "Father of Japanese Botany", having been one of the first Japanese botanists to work extensively on classifying Japanese plants using the system developed by Linnaeus. His research resulted in documenting 50,000 specimens, many of which are represented in his Makino's Illustrated Flora of Japan. Despite having dropped out of grammar school, he eventually attained a Doctor of Science degree, and his birthday is remembered as Botany Day in Japan.

4. Hideyo Noguchi (1876 - 1928)

With an HPI of 63.75, Hideyo Noguchi is the 4th most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 36 different languages.

Hideyo Noguchi (野口英世, Noguchi Hideyo, November 9, 1876 – May 21, 1928), also known as Seisaku Noguchi (野口清作, Noguchi Seisaku), was a prominent Japanese bacteriologist at the Rockefeller Institute known for his work on syphilis and yellow fever and contributing to the long term understanding of neurosyphilis. Before his career at Rockefeller Institute, he worked at the University of Pennsylvania. His research was on blood serums, snake venom, and immunity, which helped lay the foundation to the fields of immunology and serology. Alongside bacteriologist Thorvald Madsen, he produced one of the first serums to treat the North American rattlesnake bite at the Statens Serum Institute. Noguchi was an early advocate of antivenoms. He wrote a foundational text titled Snake Venoms: An Investigation of Venomous Snakes with Special Reference to the Phenomena of Their Venoms. Later in his career, he developed the first serum for Rocky mountain spotted fever, a notoriously lethal disease before treatment was discovered. During his research in Peru and Ecuador, he and fellow researcher Evelyn Tilden proved Carrions disease and verruca peruana were due to the same species, Bartonella bacilliformis. His most notable achievement was discovering the causative agent of syphilis Treponema pallidum in the infected brain and spinal cord tissue of a patient with general paresis, establishing the conclusive link between the mental and physical disease. American educator and psychiatrist John Clare Whitehorn considered the discovery an outstanding psychiatric achievement. Noguchi was prolific during his lifetime. He published over 200 academic papers and gave lecture tours throughout Europe and North America. He was one of the earliest Japanese scientists to gain international recognition and acclaim for his contributions. Eventually, he would be nominated several times for a Nobel prize in medicine between 1913 and 1927. Posthumously, his work on yellow fever, which he mistakenly identified as a bacteria, was disproven as it was a virus. In addition to that, his claims on discovering the causative organisms of rabies, poliomyelitis, trachoma and pure culture of syphilis have not been reproduced. Eventually, Noguchi died of yellow fever in search for the cause of the disease during a trip to Africa.

5. Motoo Kimura (1924 - 1994)

With an HPI of 60.93, Motoo Kimura is the 5th most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 23 different languages.

Motoo Kimura (木村資生, Kimura Motō) (November 13, 1924 – November 13, 1994) was a Japanese biologist best known for introducing the neutral theory of molecular evolution in 1968. He became one of the most influential theoretical population geneticists. He is remembered in genetics for his innovative use of diffusion equations to calculate the probability of fixation of beneficial, deleterious, or neutral alleles. Combining theoretical population genetics with molecular evolution data, he also developed the neutral theory of molecular evolution in which genetic drift is the main force changing allele frequencies. James F. Crow, himself a renowned population geneticist, considered Kimura to be one of the two greatest evolutionary geneticists, along with Gustave Malécot, after the great trio of the modern synthesis, Ronald Fisher, J. B. S. Haldane, and Sewall Wright.

6. Katsuko Saruhashi (1920 - 2007)

With an HPI of 60.59, Katsuko Saruhashi is the 6th most famous Japanese Biologist. Her biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Katsuko Saruhashi (猿橋勝子, Saruhashi Katsuko, March 22, 1920 – September 29, 2007) was a Japanese geochemist who created tools that let her take some of the first measurements of carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in seawater. She later showed evidence of the dangers of radioactive fallout and how far it can travel. Along with this focus on safety, she also researched peaceful uses of nuclear power. Her other major area of significance involved raising the number and status of women scientists, especially in Japan. She established both the Society of Japanese Women Scientists and the Saruhashi Prize, which is awarded annually to a female scientist who serves as a role model for younger women scientists. Among her other honors, she was the first woman elected to the Science Council of Japan, to earn a doctorate in chemistry from the prestigious University of Tokyo, and to win the Miyake Prize for Geochemistry.

7. Takenoshin Nakai (1882 - 1952)

With an HPI of 59.01, Takenoshin Nakai is the 7th most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 24 different languages.

Takenoshin Nakai (中井猛之進, Nakai Takenoshin, November 27, 1882, Gifu Prefecture – December 6, 1952) was a Japanese botanist. In 1919 and 1930, he published papers on the plants of Japan and Korea, including the genus Cephalotaxus. Between 1943 and 1945, during the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), Takenoshin Nakai was the director of 's Lands Plantentuin in Batavia (now Bogor Botanical Gardens in Bogor).

8. Akira Miyawaki (1928 - 2021)

With an HPI of 57.42, Akira Miyawaki is the 8th most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 18 different languages.

Akira Miyawaki (宮脇昭, Miyawaki Akira, 29 January 1928 – 16 July 2021) was a Japanese botanist and an expert in plant ecology who specialized in seeds and natural forests. He was active worldwide as a specialist in natural vegetation restoration of degraded land. He was professor emeritus at Yokohama National University and director of the Japanese Center for International Studies in Ecology since 1993. He received the Blue Planet Prize in 2006.

9. Tsuneko Okazaki (b. 1933)

With an HPI of 56.97, Tsuneko Okazaki is the 9th most famous Japanese Biologist. Her biography has been translated into 19 different languages.

Tsuneko Okazaki (岡崎恒子, Okazaki Tsuneko, born June 7, 1933) is a Japanese pioneer of molecular biology known for her work on DNA replication and specifically for discovering Okazaki fragments, along with her late husband Reiji. Dr. Tsuneko Okazaki has continued to be involved in academia, contributing to more advancements in DNA research.

10. Jinzō Matsumura (1856 - 1928)

With an HPI of 55.83, Jinzō Matsumura is the 10th most famous Japanese Biologist. His biography has been translated into 16 different languages.

Jinzō Matsumura (松村任三, Matsumura Jinzō, February 14, 1856 – May 4, 1928) was a Japanese botanist.

People

Pantheon has 15 people classified as Japanese biologists born between 1856 and 1959. Of these 15, 4 (26.67%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Japanese biologists include Yoshinori Ohsumi, Susumu Tonegawa, and Tsuneko Okazaki. The most famous deceased Japanese biologists include Tomitaro Makino, Hideyo Noguchi, and Motoo Kimura. As of April 2024, 3 new Japanese biologists have been added to Pantheon including Akira Miyawaki, Jinzō Matsumura, and Yasutomi Nishizuka.