Nobel Laureate Osamu Shimomura Passes Away At 90

Nobel Laureate Osamu Shimomura Passes Away At 90

Guwahati: Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist Osamu Shimomura passed away on Friday. Shimomura who had won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in the year 2008 for the discovery of green fluorescent protein died a natural death at the age of 90.

Japan Today reported that his alma mater Nagasaki University said on Monday that Shimomura passed away on October 19 due to natural causes.

It needs to be mentioned here that Shimomura and two American scientists Roger Y. Tsien and Martin Chalfie had shared the 2008 Nobel Prize for the discovery and development of a jellyfish protein that later contributed to cancer studies.

Shimomura was born in northern Kyoto in 1928 and studied in Nagasaki, where he survived on August 9, 1945, US atomic bombing when he was 16 years old. His high school education was cut short during World War II as he was mobilized to work at a munitions factory.

He overcame great odds in the following 11 years to earn an education and achieve academic success. Shimomura's education opportunities were starkly limited in devastated, post-war Japan.

He eventually earned chemistry degree in 1951 from Nagasaki College of Pharmacy.

In 1960 he moved to Princeton University, where he isolated the protein in samples of thousands of jellyfish taken from the US West Coast, often with the help of his wife Akemi.

The protein known as Green Fluorescent Protein lets off a glow when it is illuminated with ultraviolet light and has become a key tool in studying biological processes in cells. It may be noted that the discovery of this protein is serving as a great aid to the students of Cell and Molecular biology and Shimomura's demise has deeply moved the microbiologists all across the world.

"Shimomura was based in the US, but had moved back to Nagasaki to be close to his relatives," Nagasaki University officials said.

The devastation from the atomic bomb that killed 70,000 in Nagasaki, left a lasting impression on Shimomura and he often mentioned his experience and called for nuclear weapons ban in his lectures later in life.

This Nobel Laureate’s sudden demise has however left a void among the scientists around the world.

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