Hamao Umezawa

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Hamao Umezawa ( Japanese 梅澤 濱 夫 , Umezawa Hamao ; born  October 1, 1914 in Obama ; †  December 25, 1986 in Tokyo ) was a Japanese microbiologist who was a professor at the University of Tokyo from 1954 to 1975 and head of department from 1947 to 1978 worked at the National Health Institute of Japan. He was particularly concerned with the search for bioactive microbial substances for therapeutic applications and discovered, among other things, the antibiotics kanamycin and josamycin as well as the cancer drug bleomycin . In recognition of his academic achievements, he was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978, the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in 1980 and the Léopold Griffuel Prize in 1981.

Life

Hamao Umezawa was born in Obama in 1914 as the son of a doctor and studied medicine at the University of Tokyo from 1933 to 1937 . He was drafted into military service in 1938 and served in a military hospital in Chiba Prefecture during World War II . Due to his work in the fight against a paratyphoid epidemic among soldiers in the Niigata prefecture , he was allowed to leave the army in April 1943 and return to Tokyo University, where he also received his doctorate in 1945 . In the following period he worked at the university from 1954 to 1975 as a professor at the Institute for Infectious Diseases, at the Institute for Applied Microbiology and in the Department of Tumor Biology. In addition, from 1947 to 1978 he headed the antibiotics department at the National Health Institute of Japan.

Hamao Umezawa was married from 1945 and has two sons. In August 1983, he suffered a stroke from which he recovered almost completely. Three years later in July 1986 he fell ill with pneumonia , the consequences of which he died in a hospital in Tokyo in December of the same year .

Scientific work

Hamao Umezawa's research focused on the identification and isolation of bioactive microbial substances as well as the elucidation of their structure and biosynthesis , with the aim of developing new antibiotics , cytostatics and enzyme inhibitors . In addition, he was engaged in the study of the mechanisms of bacterial resistance to aminoglycoside antibiotics . He published around 1200 scientific publications and described around 100 new antibiotic substances, around 70 new compounds with a cytostatic effect and around 50 new enzyme inhibitors. The best-known and most successful of the active ingredients he discovered include the antibiotics kanamycin and josamycin and the cytostatic bleomycin . He was also Miterstbeschreiber of Streptomyces TYPES abikoensis S. , S. achromogenes , S. filamentosus , S. griseoluteus , S. kanamyceticus , S. mauvecolor , S. omiyaensis , S. pluricolorescens and S. pseudogriseolus .

Awards

For his scientific achievements, Hamao Umezawa was admitted to the Japanese Academy of Sciences in 1969 , to the German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 1973 , to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978 and to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences , and in 1983 to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences Sciences and 1985 admitted to the Saxon Academy of Sciences . From 1960 he was also commander of the French Order for Services to Health Care and from 1971 Knight of the Legion of Honor .

In addition, he received the Paul Ehrlich and Ludwig Darmstaedter Prize in Germany in 1980, the Léopold Griffuel Prize in France a year later and the Leeuwenhoek Medal of the Royal Society in 1982 . The University of Santiago de Compostela (1977), the Karolinska Institute (1978), the University of Oxford (1981) and the University of Paris-South (1984) made him honorary doctorates . In his home country he was awarded various national science prizes , including the Asahi Prize in 1958 , the Order of Culture in 1962 and the Order of the Sacred Treasure in the first class of merit (Kun-it-tō zuihōshō) in 1986.

memory

The Hamao Umezawa Memorial Museum , which is dedicated to the life and work of Hamao Umezawa, has existed in Tokyo's Setagaya district since 1988 . The International Society of Chemotherapy has presented the Hamao Umezawa Memorial Award as its highest scientific honor since 1986 in his memory . The bacterial genus Umezawaea proposed in 2007 and its type species Umezawaea tangerina are also named after him .

Fonts (selection)

  • Enzyme Inhibitors of Microbial Origin. Baltimore 1972
  • Bioactive Peptides produced by Microorganisms. Tokyo and New York 1978
  • New Drugs in Cancer Chemotherapy. Series: Recent Results in Cancer Research. Volume 76. Berlin and Heidelberg 1981
  • Aminoglycoside Antibiotics. Series: Handbook of Experimental Pharmacology. Volume 62. Berlin and New York 1982
  • Frontiers of Antibiotic Research. Tokyo and Orlando 1987

literature

  • Tsutomu Tsuchiya, Kenji Maeda, Derek Horton: Hamao Umezawa. 1914-1986. In: R. Stuart Tipson: Advances in Carbohydrate Chemistry and Biochemistry. Volume 48. Academic Press, San Diego 1990, ISBN 0-12-007248-3 , pp. 1-20
  • Takaaki Aoyagi: Obituary. Prof. Hamao Umezawa, MD, PhD (1914-1986). In: Journal of Enzyme Inhibition and Medicinal Chemistry. 1 (4) / 1987. Informa Pharmaceutical Science, p. 242, ISSN  1475-6366
  • Tomio Takeuchi: Obituary: Prof. Hamao Umezawa, MD, Ph.D. (1914-1986). In: Japanese Journal of Cancer Research. 78 (6) / 1987. Japanese Cancer Association, pp. 628/629, ISSN  0910-5050

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Member entry of Hamao Umezawa at the German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina , accessed on June 18, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Umezawa, Hamao
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 梅澤 濱 夫 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese microbiologist and discoverer of Kanamycin, Josamycin and Bleomycin
DATE OF BIRTH October 1, 1914
PLACE OF BIRTH Obama (fukui)
DATE OF DEATH December 25, 1986
Place of death Tokyo