18 Facts About Hitoshi Okamura

Hitoshi Okamura was born on December 2,1952 and is a Japanese scientist who specializes in chronobiology.

Hitoshi Okamura is currently a professor of Systems Biology at Kyoto University Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences and the Research Director of the Japan Science Technology Institute, CREST.

Hitoshi Okamura received a Medal of Honor with Purple Ribbon in 2007 for his research and was awarded Aschoff's Ruler for his work on circadian rhythms in rodents.

Hitoshi Okamura received his undergraduate, medical, and doctorate in science degrees from the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine.

Hitoshi Okamura was then a professor of Brain Sciences at the Kobe University School of Medicine from 1995 to 2008.

Hitoshi Okamura's work has focused on understanding mammalian circadian rhythms.

Hitoshi Okamura began his study of circadian rhythms in 1982 with the peptide work in the suprachiasmatic nucleus using the technique of histochemistry in Yasuhiko Ibata's laboratory in the Kyoto Prefectural University of Medicine.

Hitoshi Okamura established quantitative histochemistry of the suprachiasmatic nucleus in the 1980s, and together with Shin-Ichi Inouye, established in vitro slice cultures of the SCN in the early 1990s.

In 1997, Hajime Tei, Yoshiyuki Sakaki, and Hitoshi Okamura discovered the mammalian period gene PER1 in mice and humans.

Hitoshi Okamura worked with Jay Dunlap, a chronobiologist specializing in circadian rhythms in Neurospora, to show that mammalian clocks are similar to neurospora clocks in their use of induction to phase shift.

Hitoshi Okamura's team discovered that mammalian PER proteins made in the cytoplasm translocate into the nucleus of the cell and form a complex composed of CRY1, CRY2, PER1, PER2, PER3, and TIM.

Hitoshi Okamura became interested in the possible differences of autonomously rhythmic clock genes in fibroblast cell lines and those in the SCN.

Hitoshi Okamura collaborated with Shin-Ichi Inouye to find that behavioral circadian rhythmicity was recovered when the SCN from wild-type mice was transplanted into Cry deficient mice.

Hitoshi Okamura collaborated with Amita Sehgal to determine if the mPer1 and mPer2 genes were able to generate circadian oscillations.

Hitoshi Okamura discovered that flashing NMDA, which is analogous to light stimuli, instantly altered the phase of the core clock oscillation of a slice of SCN.

Hitoshi Okamura's team demonstrated that the light can activate genes and corticosterone secretion in the adrenal gland through the SCN-sympathetic nerve routes.

Hitoshi Okamura's team has looked into the relationship between the circadian clock and the cell cycle.

Now, Hitoshi Okamura continues investigations of biological clocks, fascinated with the integrational characteristics of "time" in a vertical arrangement, providing a bridge between single genes and the living organism as a whole.