University of Chicago hires Japanese genetics expert

University of Chicago hires Japanese genetics expert


By Tribune staff
4:40 PM CST, January 9, 2012

The University of Chicago said Monday that a Japanese genetics expert and former government official will join the faculty of the school's Department of Medicine in April.

Yusuke Nakamura, a professor of molecular medicine at Tokyo University's Human Genome Center, was until recently secretary general in the Japanese government's Office of Medical Innovation.

The university said that Nakamura, 59, is a leading authority on using large-scale genomic research to understand various genetic diseases and cancer and to develop cancer peptide vaccines and targeted anticancer drugs.

"Dr. Nakamura has made major contributions to modern genetics and genomics," said Kenneth Polonsky, dean of the Biological Sciences Division and the Pritzker School of Medicine at the University of Chicago. "We are extremely gratified by his interest in continuing his illustrious career at the University of Chicago."

Nakamura began his career in 1977 as an abdominal surgeon, U. of C. said in a press release. Frustrated by the shortcomings of available cancer treatments -- he lost his mother to colon cancer -- he entered a PhD program at Osaka University in molecular genetics in 1981, the U of C said. After completing his PhD, he spent five years as a research fellow and then as a faculty member at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute at the University of Utah, an international center for gene mapping.

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