DATE2024.03.21 #Awards & Prizes

Professor Yasushi Okada won the 16th Nakatani Award Grand Prize

Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.

Professor Yasushi Okada

Professor Yasushi Okada of Department of Physics received the 16th Nakatani Award Grand Prize. The Nakatani Prize is awarded to researchers who have made outstanding achievements in the field of medical engineering measurement technology, and Professor Okada received the Grand Prize for "Development of Single Molecule and Super-resolution Fluorescence Microscopy and its Application to Cell Biology Research.

Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy is a technique for visualizing microscopic structures that cannot be observed with conventional optical microscopy, making a significant contribution to biological research. The technology is widely recognized and the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to its developers in 2014. Professor Okada has developed a unique technique called spinning disk super-resolution microscopy, which is about 10 times faster than conventional super-resolution microscopy. With this technique, he was the first in the world to observe the movement of various intracellular organelles active in living cells, a discovery that led to a revision of findings described in conventional textbooks. Furthermore, we have succeeded in direct observation of genes and expression regulators. This technique has been transferred to microscope manufacturers and is widely used around the world.

These series of studies are innovative because they developed original observation techniques to confront fundamental questions in biology and revealed new findings through observations for the first time in the world. We congratulate Professor Okada on receiving this award and wish him continued success in his future endeavors.

The 16th Nakatani Prize winners have been determined (the article is written in Japanese)
https://www.nakatani-foundation.jp/news/nakataniaw_16/

(Responsibility: Takuro Ideguchi, Associate Professor, Institute for Photon Science and Technology)