DATE2021.03.25 #Awards & Prizes

Professor Hiroshi Nishimasu has been selected as an InaRIS Fellow for 2021

Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.

Professor Hiroshi Nishimasu

Professor Hiroshi Nishimasu of the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (concurrently in the Department of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science) has been selected for the Inamori Research Institute for Science (InaRIS) Fellowship, a research grant program of the Inamori Foundation. The Inamori Research Institute for Science (InaRIS) Fellowship Program provides long-term grants totaling 100 million yen over a 10-year period to encourage researchers to follow their curiosity and engage in research with a grand vision and great potential, without being preoccupied with short-term results.

Dr. Nishimasu has studied the molecular mechanisms by which proteins and nucleic acids work. In 2014, he was the first in the world to determine the crystal structure of the Cas9-guide RNA-target DNA complex and to elucidate the mechanism of DNA cleavage by CRISPR-Cas9 and revealed the mechanism of DNA cleavage by CRISPR-Cas9. Furthermore, by introducing mutations into Cas9 based on the structural information, he succeeded in creating Cas9 modifications with different specificities for the target DNA, thereby extending the range of application of genome editing technology. Dr. Nishimasu is an up-and-coming structural biologist who became independent in 2020, and with the support of the InaRIS Fellowship, he is expected to contribute to the advancement of biology through basic and applied research on novel Cas enzymes and other unknown protein-RNA complexes. We congratulate the InaRIS Fellowship on its selection and look forward to its further development.

InaRIS" Inamori Science and Research Organization "InaRIS" Fellow for 2021
https://www.inamori-f.or.jp/210319_inaris

(Responsibility: Professor Osamu Nureki, Department of Biological Sciences)