Kōji Nakanishi

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Kōji Nakanishi ( Japanese 中西 香 爾 , Nakanishi Kōji ; born May 11, 1925 in Hong Kong ; † March 28, 2019 in New York City ) was a Japanese chemist . His specialty was organic chemistry .

Life

Due to his father's job, his family moved quite often. He spent the first ten years of his life in Hong Kong, further in Lyon ( France ), London ( England ) and Alexandria ( Egypt ). In 1935 the family moved to Osaka ( Japan ). In 1947 he completed his academic training at Nagoya University . In the post-war period he married his wife Yasuko, with whom he has two children. Nakanishi last lived in New York .

Scientific career

Nakanishi studied chemistry at the Faculty of Chemistry at Nagoya University. After postgraduate studies with LF Fieser at Harvard University (1950–1952), he received his doctorate in 1954 from the University of Nagoya (F. Egami, Y. Hirata). After several professorships (Faculty of Chemistry, Nagoya University 1955-1958; Faculty of Chemistry, Tokyo University of Education 1958-1963; Tōhoku University , Sendai 1963-1969), he taught and worked since 1969 at the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University in New York . In 1980 he became a Centennial Professor there and was Director of the Department of Chemistry from 1987 to 1990. He was a founding member of the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (ICIPE) in Kenya and was director of the Suntory Institute for Bioorganic Research from 1978 to 1991. He was also director of the Biosphere-2 project from 2001 to 2003 .

Honors

Nakanishi has received numerous international awards, including:

In 1973 he was elected a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .

Scientific importance

His area of ​​interest was natural product research. Nakanishi isolated more than 200 hitherto unknown natural substances and examined their biological effects. He pioneered the use of spectrometric and chemical methods for structure elucidation. He devoted around 30 publications to the ingredients of the ginkgo tree (including ginkgolide and bilobalide ).

family

Nakanishi's nephew Shigetada is a biologist, director of the Osaka Institute for Bioscience (Ōsaka Baiosaiensu Kenkyūjo) , Gruber and Asahi Prize winner .

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Linda Wang: Koji Nakanishi dies at age 93. In: Chemical & Engineering News. American Chemical Society, March 29, 2019, accessed March 30, 2019 .
  2. ^ Biographical snapshots: Koji Nakanishi , Journal of Chemical Education web site.
  3. ↑ Short biography ( Memento from May 9, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Koji Nakanishi
  5. ↑ M. Maruyama, A. Terahara, Y. Itagaki, K. Nakanishi: The Ginkgolides I: Isolation and Characterization of the Various Groups . In: Tetrahedron Letters . tape 8 , no. 4 , 1967, p. 299-302 .
  6. ↑ Further publications on ginkgo biloba ingredients
  7. ↑ Seimeishi Kenkyūkan : Nakanishi Shigetada
personal data
SURNAME Nakanishi, Kōji
ALTERNATIVE NAMES 中西 香 爾 (Japanese)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Japanese chemist
DATE OF BIRTH May 11, 1925
PLACE OF BIRTH Hong Kong
DATE OF DEATH March 28, 2019
Place of death New York City