17 Facts About Tadamitsu Kishimoto

Tadamitsu Kishimoto is a Japanese immunologist known for research on IgM and cytokines, most famously, interleukin 6.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto did postdoctoral work under Kimishige Ishizaka, the discoverer of IgE at Johns Hopkins University.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto is listed by the Institute for Scientific Information as a highly cited biologist and he is in the top ten of h-index of living biologists.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto, who was born in Osaka in 1939, was President of Osaka University from 1997 to 2003 and a Member, Council for Science and Technology Policy, Cabinet office from 2004 to 2006.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto is Professor, Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences, Osaka University.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto was Dean, Professor and Chairman of Department of Medicine at Osaka University Medical School from which he graduated in 1964.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto is currently Japan's leading scientist in the field of life science, specifically in immunology and has made fundamental contributions to the understanding of cytokine functions through series of his studies on IL-6, its receptor system, and transcription factors.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto has developed anti-IL6 receptor therapy for several immune disorders including Castleman's disease, rheumatoid arthritis and juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto has received numerous awards, including the Imperial Prize of the Japan Academy in 1992, the Sandoz Prize for Immunology from the International Union of Immunological Society in 1992 and the Avery-Landsteiner Prize from the German Immunology Society in 1996.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto was awarded Robert Koch Gold Medal in 2003, Honorary Life Time Achievement Awards from International Cytokine Society in 2006 and the Crafoord Award from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in 2009.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto has been elected a Foreign Associate of the US National Academy of Sciences in 1991, a member of the Japan Academy in 1995 and a member of German Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2005.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto served as a president of the International Immunopharmacology Society, International Cytokine Society and the Japanese Immunology Society.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto is an honorary member in American Association of Immunologists and American Society of Hematology.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto identified the transcription factors NF-IL-6 and STAT3, both central to the action of IL-6.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto further discovered a family of suppressors of cytokine signaling, the SOCS molecules, that are key regulators of cytokine function.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto demonstrated the involvement of IL-6 in the pathogenesis of cardiac myxomas, multiple myeloma, Castleman's disease, rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease and juvenile idiopathic arthritis.

Tadamitsu Kishimoto identified IL-6 as a hepatocyte stimulating factor which induces acute phase reactions.