Ryuzo Yanagimachi
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Ryuzo Yanagimachi (Japanese: 柳町 隆造 Yanagimachi Ryūzō; August 29, 1928– ) is a pioneer in the cloning field. In 1997 his laboratory at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa successfully cloned mice using the Honolulu technique. The first one was a female named Cumulina from the cells that surround the developing ovarian follicle in mice.
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[edit] Early years
Yanagimachi was born in Japan. He received a BS in zoology in 1952 and a DSc in animal embryology in 1960 from Hokkaido University. He then taught high school for two years because he could not find a research job.
Yanagimachi applied for a post-doctoral position with Dr. M. C. Chang of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. He got this position and there discovered how to fertilize hamster eggs in the laboratory. This work led to in vitro fertilization of human eggs in 1969.
In 1966 he returned to Hokkaido University as a temporary lecturer with the possibility of later being appointed to an assistant professorship. Another person eventually got the professorship.
Yanagimachi ended up at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, where he has been now for over thirty years. During his time there he has become a full professor of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology and reproductive biology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine.
He is married to Hiroko, a former child psychologist. She could not find work in her field when they came to the U.S. due to a language barrier, so she went to work in his lab. They have no children.
[edit] Cloning
In July 1998 the Yanagimachi laboratory published work in Nature on cloning mice from adult cells. Yanagimachi named the new cloning technique they had created to do this work the "Honolulu technique". The first mouse born was named Cumulina, after the cumulus cells whose nuclei were used to clone her. At the time of the publication of this work over fifty mice spanning three generations had been produced through this technique.
This work was done by an international team of scientists dubbed "Team Yanagimachi" or "Team Yana" for short. This team included co-authors Teruhiko "Teru" Wakayama (also a native of Japan), Anthony "Tony" Perry (United Kingdom), Maurizio Zuccotti (Italy), and K. R. Johnson (United States).
The Yanagimachi laboratory moved from the warehouse which had housed it for over thirty years into the newly created Institute for Biogenesis Research in the biomedical tower of the John A. Burns School of Medicine. Money and renown from the opportunities opened up by the Nature article made the institute possible.
Yanagimachi was made director of the institute and appointed Perry and Wakayama as heads of two of the institute's five research units. Wakayama had been a post-doctoral fellow and Perry (a British citizen) a European fellow when they did the cloning work with Yanagimachi. Perry soon left the university in a dispute over intellectual rights to the cloning technique. Wakayama left for a position at the Rockefeller University in 1999. In 2002, both Perry and Wakayama were recruited by the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology in Kobe, Japan.[1]
The Yanagimachi laboratory continues to make advances in cloning. The first male animal cloned from adult cells was announced in 1999. In 2004 the laboratory participated in the cloning of an infertile male mouse. This advance may be used to produce many infertile animals for use in research in human infertility.
Mice cloned by the Honolulu technique have been on display at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu, Hawaiʻi, and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, Illinois.
Yanagimachi had been intending to write a book about his life's work. Unfortunately many of his original notes were lost in the October 2004 flood at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, which damaged many buildings on campus including the one housing his laboratories. This flood caused over US $2 million worth of damage to the Yanagimachi laboratories alone.
[edit] Other work
The Yanagimachi lab also studies gene manipulation, cell differentiation, sperm and egg fertilization, and infertility.
It was announced in March 2004 that the Yanagimachi laboratory had helped to produce a live birth of a mammal other than a mouse from freeze-dried sperm. The rabbit kit was born at the Dr. Jerry Yang's laboratory [2] at University of Connecticut, but soon died because the mother did not care for it [3]. The lab supplied the freeze-dried sperm.[4]
[edit] Awards and honors
- University of Hawaiʻi Regents' medal for excellence in research 1988
- Japan Academy of Sciences' International Prize for Biology 1996
- Elected to the National Academy of Sciences 2001
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Hall of Honor 2003
[edit] References
- Announcement of cloning success, Honolulu Star-Bulletin
- New York Times profile
- Infertile mouse clone 2004, Honolulu Advertiser
- Flood damage, Honolulu Advertiser
