was a professor of medicine at

Tulane University Tulane University, officially the Tulane University of Louisiana, is a private university, private research university in New Orleans, Louisiana. Founded as the Medical College of Louisiana in 1834 by seven young medical doctors, it turned into ...

, and the founding Director of the university's Hébert Research Center, working on neuroendocrinology and biochemistry research. He died in 2007 of

multiple myeloma Multiple myeloma (MM), also known as plasma cell myeloma and simply myeloma, is a cancer of plasma cells, a type of white blood cell that normally produces antibodies. Often, no symptoms are noticed initially. As it progresses, bone pain, an ...

. His books have been collected by libraries worldwide.

Career

Akira Arimura received his M.D. and Ph.D. in medicine in 1951 and in 1957, respectively, from the Nagoya University School of Medicine, completing his degrees despite a severe bout of

pulmonary tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by ''Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, in w ...

. Under Professor Shinji Ito, Arimura began his groundbreaking endocrinology dissertation on

posterior pituitary hormones Posterior may refer to: * Posterior (anatomy), the end of an organism opposite to its head ** Buttocks, as a euphemism * Posterior horn (disambiguation) * Posterior probability, the conditional probability that is assigned when the relevant evidenc ...

, ultimately getting published in Nature (Itoh and Arimura 1954) and attracting global attention. After moving to the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

, he became a Professor in the Department of Medicine in 1970 at Tulane University, and established his own laboratory in 1982. To further scientific relations between the US and

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

, Arimura formed a co-op between the two countries, called the US-Japan Cooperative Biomedical Research Laboratories at Tulane, continuing his research on

PACAP Pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide also known as PACAP is a protein that in humans is encoded by the ''ADCYAP1'' gene. pituitary adenylate cyclase-activating polypeptide is similar to vasoactive intestinal peptide. One of its effect ...

and standing as the director of the program to his death.

Education

Arimura graduated from the Zoshikan Academy of the Seventh Higher School and entered the Nagoya University School of Medicine in 1943. Once he graduated and completed an internship at the Nagoya University Hospital in 1956, he was given a

Fulbright Fellowship The Fulbright Program, including the Fulbright–Hays Program, is one of several United States Cultural Exchange Programs with the goal of improving intercultural relations, cultural diplomacy, and intercultural competence between the people of ...

, and he traveled to the United States to continue his research at the

Yale University School of Medicine The Yale School of Medicine is the graduate medical school at Yale University, a private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was founded in 1810 as the Medical Institution of Yale College and formally opened in 1813. The primary te ...

, where Arimura got to know Dr. Andrew V. Schally, and at Tulane University in 1958. Arimura returned to Japan to assist his old professor Ito at the Hokkaido University School of Medicine in 1961, and then moved back to the US to work with Dr. Schally, successfully beating the Schally lab's research competitor, Dr. Roger Guillemin's lab, in the race to purify and characterize the luteinizing-hormone releasing hormone.

Awards

* Medal of Rouen University

Career

Education

Awards

References

Further reading