Reiko Kuroda

Reiko Kuroda (黒田 玲子, Kuroda Reiko, born October 7, 1947)[1] is a Japanese chemist who is a professor at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Tokyo.[2]

Reiko Kuroda
黒田 玲子
BornOctober 7 1947
Akita, Japan
Alma materUniversity of Tokyo
AwardsSarahushi Prize
Scientific career
FieldsChemistry
InstitutionsKing's College London

Institute of Cancer Research

University of Tokyo

Early life and education

Kuroda was born in Akita but grew up in Miygai, on the island of Honshu, Japan.[3] She obtained her MSc (1972) and PhD (1975) in Chemistry from the University of Tokyo.[4] Her doctorate focused on determining the stereochemistry of metal complexes.[3]

Career

After her PhD, Kuroda worked at King's College London and the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK before returning to Japan in 1986.[4] In 1992 she became the first woman to be made full professor of natural sciences at the University of Tokyo.[4]

Kuroda's field of research is primarily chirality within both inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry.[5] Part of her research has involved studying chirality in snail shells. Her work identified that the direction of the shell spiral is determined at very early stages of snail development.[6] Her team later used CRISPR genetic editing to show that this process is dependent on a single gene, Lsdia1.[7]

Kuroda has established the Science Interpreter Training Program at the University of Tokyo and was appointed to serve as a governor for the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre in 2006. She has also served as Vice-President for External Relations in the International Science Council.

Honours and awards

in 1993, Kuroda received the Saruhashi Prize for esteemed female scientists.[8]

On June 10, 2009, Kuroda was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in its class for chemistry.[5]

In 2013, Kuroda was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science. She has been nominated for awards by the Human Frontier Science Programme (HFSP) and by AcademiaNet.

References

  1. International Council for Science (ICSU) Archived 2009-02-05 at the Wayback Machine, candidate presentations, p. 22
  2. "Trend-Setting Women Scientists of Biomedical Research in Japan" (PDF). International Journal of Medical Sciences. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  3. Hargittai, Magdolna (2015-03-04). Women Scientists: Reflections, Challenges, and Breaking Boundaries. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-935999-8.
  4. Crow, James Mitchell. "The asymmetry problem". Chemistry World. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  5. Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: Two prominent researchers elected to the Academy's class for chemistry, press announcement, June 30, 2009
  6. Yong, Ed (2016-02-25). "The Origin of Left and Right". The Atlantic. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  7. Klein, JoAnna (2019-05-24). "It's a Lefty! Welcome to the World's First Crispr Snail Baby (Published 2019)". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
  8. "U.N. science board taps chemist Kuroda". The Japan Times. 2013-10-21. Retrieved 2021-02-19.
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