• Nobel Prize
• Order of Culture
• Persons of Cultural Merit
• The Japan Academy Prize

Nobel Prize

SUZUKI AkiraNobel Prize Winner in Chemistry 2010

Emeritus Professor Akira Suzuki, who worked for more than 40 years at Hokkaido University after graduating, won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2010. The prize was given for his work on “palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis,” which produce a more stable, nontoxic reaction compared with other reactions, an innovation that drastically changed the methodology of organic synthetic chemistry and serves as a foundation for manufacturing. It also has made a significant contribution to the development of products that are familiar in our daily lives, such as pharmaceutical drugs, pesticides, liquid crystals, and organic light-emitting diodes. The achievement perfectly embodies our philosophy of “practical learning.”

Professor Emeritus and Hokkaido University Professor
SUZUKI Akira
Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry 2010

Benjamin LISTNobel Prize Winner in Chemistry 2021

Specially Appointed Professor Benjamin List has worked as a Principal Investigator at the Institute for Chemical Reaction Design and Discovery since the institution’s establishment in 2018. In 2021, he jointly received the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2021 with Dr. David W. C. MacMillan of Princeton University for “the development of asymmetric organocatalysis,” which has emerged as the third major type of catalysis, in addition to metal- and enzyme-based catalysis. Organic catalysts are carbon-based instead of metal-based, making them comparatively environmentally friendly and cheap. Molecules can often have two versions that are mirror images of each other. Asymmetric organocatalysts have become widely adopted because of their ability to control a reaction so that only one of these mirror images is produced, which is especially important when making pharmaceuticals.

Specially Appointed Professor and Hokkaido University Professor
Director of the Max Planck Institut für Kohlenforschung
Benjamin LIST
Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry 2021

• Nobel Prize
• Order of Culture
• Persons of Cultural Merit
• The Japan Academy Prize

Order of Culture

The prestigious Order of Culture Prize was established in 1937. This prize is awarded to men and women for contributions to Japanese art, literature, or culture. Prizes are conferred by the Emperor of Japan in person on Culture Day on November 3rd each year.

Name	Year	Title	Reason
MIYABE Kingo	1946	Professor Emeritus	Botanical study
SUZUKI Akira	2010	Professor Emeritus	Developing a chemical tool known as palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings for organic boron compounds

NameYearTitleReason

• Nobel Prize
• Order of Culture
• Persons of Cultural Merit
• The Japan Academy Prize

Persons of Cultural Merit

The system for Persons of Cultural Merit was established in 1951 by the Law on Pensions for the Persons of Cultural Merit. Its purpose is to honor persons of cultural merit by providing a special government-sponsored pension.

Name	Year	Title	Reason
MATSUMURA Shonen	1954	Professor Emeritus	Entomological study
ITO Seiya	1959	Professor Emeritus	Phytopathological study of crop diseases and fungi
SAKAMURA Tetsu	1976	Professor Emeritus	Plant-cell study of wheat chromosome and plant- physiological study of mold
TAKAHASHI Man-emon	1995	Professor Emeritus	Genetic study of rice
SUZUKI Akira	2010	Professor Emeritus	Developing a chemical tool known as palladium-catalyzed cross-couplings for organic boron compounds.
YAMAGISHI Toshio	2013	Professor Emeritus	Research on social dilemmas and trust
KIDA Hiroshi	2017	Professor Emeritus	Elucidation of the mechanism causing new influenza strains
UI Michio	2018	Professor Emeritus	Research and function elucidation of GTP-binding protein

NameYearTitleReason

• Nobel Prize
• Order of Culture
• Persons of Cultural Merit
• The Japan Academy Prize

The Japan Academy Prize

Name	Year	Title	Reason
KON Yutaka	1934	Professor of Medicine(Imperial Academy Prize)	Research on silver reaction of cells
KUNUGI Kinjiro	1939	Professor of Science(Imperial Academy Prize)	Research on the theory of abstract spaces
HORIUCHI Juro	1940	Professor of Science(Imperial Academy Prize)	Theoretical and experimental research on chemical kinetics
NAKAYA Ukichiro	1941	Professor of Science(Imperial Academy Prize)	Physical investigations of snow
KAYA Seiji	1942	Professor of Science(Imperial Academy Prize)	Magnetic studies of ferromagnetic crystals
SUZUKI Jun	1949	Professor of Science	Studies on ultrabasic rocks and the ore-deposits accompanying them
MAKINO Sajiro	1958	Professor of Science	Studies on chromosomes in animals
FUKUSHI Teikichi	1958	Professor of Agriculture	Studies on insect transmission of plant virus diseases
NAGAO Seijin	1965	Professor of Agriculture Studies	Studies on twelve linkage groups in rice
TAKAHASHI Manemon	1965	Assistant Professor of Agriculture	Studies on twelve linkage groups in rice
FUJITA Kotatsu	1971	Professor of Letters	Study of early ‘Pure Land Buddhism’
ISHIZUKA Yoshiaki	1975	Professor Emeritus	Nutrio-physiological studies on the rice plant, and application to rice production (joint research)
TANAKA Akira	1975	Professor of Agriculture	Nutrio-physiological studies on the rice plant, and application to rice production (joint research)
YOKOYAMA Izumi	1981	Professor of Science	Structure of volcanoes as disclosed by gravity anomaly distribution
BAN Yoshio	1984	Professor of Pharmacology	Studies of the synthesis of the indole group of alkaloids
SHIKATA Eishiro	1986	Professor of Agriculture	Studies on plant viruses and viroids
KINOSHITA Toshiro	1993	Professor of Agriculture	Genetical studies on the interaction between cytoplasmic and nuclear genomes, and the application of these studies to crop breeding
OHTSUKA Eiko	1996	Professor of Pharmacology	Synthesis and functional studies on nucleic acids: synthetic c-Ha-ras gene and related subjects (joint research)
MATSUNO Taro	1997	Professor of Environmental Earth Science	Elucidation of atmospheric dynamics in the stratosphere and mesosphere
SUZUKI Akira	2004	Professor Emeritus	Studies on the development of new synthetic reactions using palladium catalysts (joint research)
KIDA Hiroshi	2005	Professor of Veterinary Medicine	Studies on the control of influenza: mechanism of emergence of pandemic influenza virus strains in poultry, domestic animals and humans, and molecular basis of the neutralization of viral infectivity with antibodies
TAGUCHI Masaki	2021	Professor Emeritus	Studies on royal jurisdiction and regional settlement disputes in later medieval Germany
SHIRATO Hiroki	2022	Professor of Faculty of Medicine	Biomedical and Engineering Research about Real-time Tumor Tracking Radiotherapy/Particle Beam Therapy against Cancer

NameYearTitleReason