The , established in 1929, is an award presented by the Japanese newspaper ''

Asahi Shimbun is one of the four largest newspapers in Japan. Founded in 1879, it is also one of the oldest newspapers in Japan and Asia, and is considered a newspaper of record for Japan. Its circulation, which was 4.57 million for its morning edition and ...

'' and Asahi Shimbun Foundation to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of arts and academics and have greatly contributed to the development and progress of Japanese culture and society at large. The Asahi Prize was created to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the foundation of ''Asahi Shimbun''. It is recognized today as one of the most authoritative private awards.

Prize winners

Past prize winners include the following.

Arts

Tsubouchi Shōyō __NoTOC__ was a Japanese author, critic, playwright, translator, editor, educator, and professor at Waseda University. He has been referred to as a seminal figure in Japanese drama. "Wetmore deals cleanly with Japanese theatre as part of the mod ...

, novelist, 1929 * Taikan Yokoyama, artist, 1933 * Jigoro Kano, founder of judo, 1935 *

Shimazaki Toson Shimazaki (written: , or ) is a Japanese surname. Notable people with the surname include: *Aki Shimazaki (born 1954), Canadian writer and translator *, Japanese idol and singer *, Japanese speed skater *, Japanese volleyball player *, Japanese vo ...

, novelist, 1935 * Ryōhei Koiso, painter, 1939 *

Jun'ichirō Tanizaki was a Japanese author who is considered to be one of the most prominent figures in modern Japanese literature. The tone and subject matter of his work ranges from shocking depictions of sexuality and destructive erotic obsessions to subtle por ...

, novelist, 1948 *

NHK Symphony Orchestra The is a Japanese broadcast orchestra based in Tokyo. The orchestra gives concerts in several venues, including the NHK Hall, Suntory Hall, and the Tokyo Opera City Concert Hall. History The orchestra began as the ''New Symphony Orchestra'' o ...

, 1951 *

Mashiho Chiri Mashiho Chiri () (February 24, 1909 June 9, 1961) was an Ainu people, Ainu linguist and anthropologist. He was best known for creating Ainu-Japanese dictionaries. Biography Chiri was born on February 24, 1909 in what is now Noboribetsu, Hokka ...

, 1954 *

Eiji Yoshikawa was a Japanese historical novelist. Among his best-known novels are revisions of older classics. He was mainly influenced by classics such as '' The Tale of the Heike'', ''Tale of Genji'', ''Water Margin'' and ''Romance of the Three Kingdoms'', ...

, novelist, 1955 *

Shikō Munakata was a woodblock printmaker active in Shōwa period Japan. He is associated with the '' sōsaku-hanga'' movement and the ''mingei'' (folk art) movement. Munakata was awarded the "Prize of Excellence" at the Second International Print Exhibition ...

, artist, 1964 *

Jirō Osaragi was the pen-name of a popular Japanese writer in Shōwa period Japan, known primarily for his historical fiction novels, which appeared serialized in newspapers and magazines. His real name was . Early life Osaragi Jirō was born in Yokohama. H ...

, writer, 1964 *

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker and painter who directed thirty films in a career spanning over five decades. He is widely regarded as one of the most important and influential filmmakers in the history of cinema. Kurosawa displayed a bold, dyna ...

, film director, 1965 *

Haruko Sugimura was a Japanese stage and film actress, best known for her appearances in the films of Yasujirō Ozu and Mikio Naruse from the late 1940s to the early 1960s. Biography Sugimura was born in Nishi-ku, Hiroshima. After the death of her parents, ...

, actress, 1968 *

Ryōtarō Shiba , also known as , was a Japanese author. He is best known for his novels about historical events in Japan and on the Northeast Asian sub-continent, as well as his historical and cultural essays pertaining to Japan and its relationship to the r ...

, novelist, 1982 * Ineko Sata, writer, 1983 *

Yasushi Inoue was a Japanese writer of novels, short stories, poetry and essays, noted for his historical and autobiographical fiction. His most acclaimed works include '' The Bullfight'' (''Tōgyū'', 1949), ''The Roof Tile of Tempyō'' (''Tenpyō no iraka' ...

, novelist, 1984 *

Seiji Ozawa Seiji (written: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , or in hiragana) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese ski jumper *, Japanese racing driver *, Japanese politician *, Japanese film directo ...

, conductor, 1985 *

Osamu Tezuka Osamu Tezuka (, born , ''Tezuka Osamu''; – 9 February 1989) was a Japanese manga artist, cartoonist, and animator. Born in Osaka Prefecture, his prolific output, pioneering techniques, and innovative redefinitions of genres earned him such ...

, manga artist, 1987 *

Migishi Setsuko Migishi Setsuko (三岸節子, January 3, 1905 – April 18, 1999) was a Japanese ''yōga'' (Western-style) painter. Known for employing vivid colors and bold strokes for still-life and landscape, Migishi contributed greatly to the establishmen ...

, artist, 1989 *

Seichō Matsumoto was a Japanese writer, credited with popularizing detective fiction in Japan. Matsumoto's works broke new ground by incorporating elements of human psychology and ordinary life. His works often reflect a wider social context and postwar nih ...

, novelist, 1989 *

Shuhei Fujisawa (26 December 1927 – 26 January 1997) was a Japanese author, whose real name was Tomeji Kosuge. (小菅留治). Over fifty of his books were published through the course of his lifetime, including both full-length novels and short story anthologi ...

, novelist, 1993 * Tadao Ando, architect, 1994 (1996

Praemium Imperiale Prince Takamatsu The Praemium Imperiale ( ja, 高松宮殿下記念世界文化賞, Takamatsu-no-miya Denka Kinen Sekai Bunka-shō, World Culture Prize in Memory of His Imperial Highness Prince Takamatsu) is an international art prize inaugura ...

winner) (1997

Royal Gold Medal The Royal Gold Medal for architecture is awarded annually by the Royal Institute of British Architects on behalf of the British monarch, in recognition of an individual's or group's substantial contribution to international architecture. It is gi ...

winner) *

Kenzaburō Ōe is a Japanese writer and a major figure in contemporary Japanese literature. His novels, short stories and essays, strongly influenced by French and American literature and literary theory, deal with political, social and philosophical issues, i ...

, novelist, 1994 (1994 Nobel Prize in Literature) * Shuntaro Tanikawa, poet, 1995 *

Yoji Yamada is a Japanese film director best known for his ''Otoko wa Tsurai yo'' series of films and his Samurai Trilogy (''The Twilight Samurai'', ''The Hidden Blade'' and '' Love and Honor''). Biography He was born in Osaka, but due to his father's job ...

, film director, 1996 *

Donald Keene Donald Lawrence Keene (June 18, 1922 – February 24, 2019) was an American-born Japanese scholar, historian, teacher, writer and translator of Japanese literature. Keene was University Professor emeritus and Shincho Professor Emeritus of Japan ...

, writer, 1997 *

Yayoi Kusama is a Japanese contemporary artist who works primarily in sculpture and installation, and is also active in painting, performance, video art, fashion, poetry, fiction, and other arts. Her work is based in conceptual art and shows some attributes ...

, artist, 2000 (2006

winner) *

Hayao Miyazaki is a Japanese animator, director, producer, screenwriter, author, and manga artist. A co-founder of Studio Ghibli, he has attained international acclaim as a masterful storyteller and creator of Japanese animated feature films, and is widel ...

, film director, 2001 (2002

Academy Award for Best Animated Feature The Academy Award for Best Animated Feature is given each year for animated films. An animated feature is defined by the Academy as a film with a running time of more than 40 minutes in which characters' performances are created using a frame-by- ...

winner) *

Ai Nagai is a Japanese playwright, stage director, and the co-founder and leader of the theater company Nitosha. She is known for adopting realism as her primary writing style. Two of her major works, and , both exemplify her utilization of realism. Acco ...

, playwright, 2005 *

Haruki Murakami is a Japanese writer. His novels, essays, and short stories have been bestsellers in Japan and internationally, with his work translated into 50 languages and having sold millions of copies outside Japan. He has received numerous awards for his ...

, novelist, 2006 *

Shigeru Mizuki was a Japanese manga artist and historian, best known for his manga series ''GeGeGe no Kitarō''. Born in a hospital in Osaka and raised in the city of Sakaiminato, Tottori, he later moved to Chōfu, Tokyo where he remained until his death. ...

, manga artist, 2008 *

Tadanori Yokoo is a Japanese graphic designer, illustrator, printmaker and painter. Yokoo’s signature style of psychedelia and pastiche engages a wide span of modern visual and cultural phenomena from Japan and around the world. Career Tadanori Yokoo, bo ...

, artist, 2011 *

Takarazuka Revue The is a Japanese all-female musical theatre troupe based in Takarazuka, Hyōgo Prefecture, Japan. Women play all roles in lavish, Broadway-style productions of Western-style musicals and stories adapted from films, novels, manga, and Japane ...

, 2013 *

Tatsuya Nakadai is a Japanese film actor. He was featured in 11 films directed by Masaki Kobayashi, including ''The Human Condition'' trilogy, wherein he starred as the lead character Kaji, plus ''Harakiri'', ''Samurai Rebellion'' and ''Kwaidan''. Nakadai wor ...

, actor, 2013 *

Shigeru Ban Biography
, The Hyatt Foundation, retrieved 26 March 2014 is a Japanese architect, known for his i ...

, architect, 2014 *

Taichi Yamada is a Japanese screenwriter and novelist. His real name is . Career Born in Asakusa, Tokyo, Yamada attended Waseda University before entering the Shōchiku film studios, where he trained as an assistant director under Keisuke Kinoshita. He left t ...

, screenwriter, 2014 * Tōta Kaneko, poet 2015 *

Kazushi Ono Kazushi (written: 和志, 和司, 和士, 和史, 一志 or 一至) is a masculine Japanese given name. Notable people with the name include: *, Japanese manga artist *, Japanese rugby sevens player *, Japanese writer *, Japanese footballer *, Jap ...

, conductor 2015 *

Moto Hagio is a Japanese manga artist. Regarded for her contributions to ''shōjo'' manga ( manga aimed at young and adolescent women), Hagio is considered the most significant artist in the demographic and among the most influential manga artists of a ...

, manga artist, 2016 *

Jakucho Setouchi (15 May 1922 – 9 November 2021; born formerly known as was a Japanese Buddhist nun, writer, and activist. Setouchi wrote a best-selling translation of '' The Tale of Genji'' and over 400 fictional biographical and historical novels. In 1997 ...

novelist, 2017 *

Yoko Tawada Yōko Tawada (多和田葉子 ''Tawada Yōko'', born March 23, 1960) is a Japanese writer currently living in Berlin, Germany. She writes in both Japanese and German. Tawada has won numerous literary awards, including the Akutagawa Prize, the Tan ...

, writer, 2019 *

Haruomi Hosono , sometimes credited as Harry Hosono, is a Japanese musician, singer, songwriter and record producer. He is considered to be one of the most influential musicians in Japanese pop music history, credited with shaping the sound of Japanese pop for ...

. bass player, 2020 *

Daidō Moriyama is a Japanese photographer best known for his black-and-white street photography and association with the avant-garde photography magazine ''Provoke (magazine), Provoke''. Moriyama’s rough, unfettered photographic style makes use of sharply t ...

, photographer, 2020 *

Machi Tawara is a contemporary Japanese writer, translator and poet. Tawara is most famous as a contemporary poet. She is credited with revitalizing the tanka for modern Japanese audiences. Her skill as a translator consist of translating classical Japanese ...

, poet, 2021

Science

Yoshio Nishina was a Japanese physicist who was called "the founding father of modern physics research in Japan". He led the efforts of Japan to develop an atomic bomb during World War II. Early life and career Nishina was born in Satoshō, Okayama. He rece ...

, physicist, 1944 * Shinichiro Tomonaga, physicist, 1946 (1965

Nobel Prize The Nobel Prizes ( ; sv, Nobelpriset ; no, Nobelprisen ) are five separate prizes that, according to Alfred Nobel's will of 1895, are awarded to "those who, during the preceding year, have conferred the greatest benefit to humankind." Alfr ...

in Physics) *

Shoichi Sakata was a Japanese physicist and Marxist who was internationally known for theoretical work on the subatomic particles.Nussbaum, Louis-Frédéric. (2005). "''Sakata Shōichi''" in ; n.b., Louis-Frédéric is pseudonym of Louis-Frédéric Nussbaum, '' ...

, physicist, 1948 *

Tomizo Yoshida was a prominent Japanese pathologist, famous for discovering the Yoshida sarcoma. In addition, he is known for demonstrating the chemical-induced hepatocarcinogenesis in rats with his mentor Takaoki Sasaki. Yoshida received the Imperial Prize ...

, pathologist, 1951 *

Kiyoshi Oka was a Japanese mathematician who did fundamental work in the theory of several complex variables. Biography Oka was born in Osaka. He went to Kyoto Imperial University in 1919, turning to mathematics in 1923 and graduating in 1924. He was in ...

, mathematician, 1953 *

Leo Esaki Reona Esaki (江崎玲於奈 ''Esaki Reona'', born March 12, 1925), also known as Leo Esaki, is a Japanese physicist who shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1973 with Ivar Giaever and Brian David Josephson for his work in electron tunneling in ...

, physicist, 1959 (1973 Nobel Prize in Physics) *

Osamu Hayaishi , was a Japanese biochemist, physiologist, and military physician. He discovered Oxygenases at the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases, National Institutes of Health in 1955. Citing his "outstanding and pioneering contributions ...

, biochemist, 1964 (1986

Wolf Prize in Medicine The Wolf Prize in Medicine is awarded annually by the Wolf Foundation in Israel. It is one of the six Wolf Prizes established by the Foundation and awarded since 1978; the others are in Agriculture, Chemistry, Mathematics, Physics and Arts. The ...

) *

Yoshimasa Hirata was a Japanese organic chemist. Biography Hirata was born in Yamaguchi, Japan in 1915. He received a Bachelor of Science from the Tokyo Imperial University (now the University of Tokyo) in 1941, and then joined the faculty there as a Lecturer ...

, chemist, 1965 *

Chushiro Hayashi was a Japanese astrophysicist. Hayashi tracks on the Hertzsprung–Russell diagram are named after him. Hayashi was born in Kyoto and enrolled at the Imperial University of Tokyo in 1940, earning his BSc in Physics after 2½ years, in 1942. ...

, astrophysicist, 1965 *

Heisuke Hironaka is a Japanese mathematician who was awarded the Fields Medal in 1970 for his contributions to algebraic geometry. Career Hironaka entered Kyoto University in 1949. After completing his undergraduate studies at Kyoto University, he received his ...

, mathematician, 1967 (1970

Fields Medal The Fields Medal is a prize awarded to two, three, or four mathematicians under 40 years of age at the International Congress of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), a meeting that takes place every four years. The name of the award ho ...

) *

Setsuro Ebashi was a prominent Japanese physiologist who uncovered the regulatory role of calcium in cells. He is famous for the discovery of Troponin in 1965, which is integral to muscle contraction, as well as for the contribution of diagnosis of muscular d ...

, biomedical scientist, 1968 (1999

International Prize for Biology The is an annual award for "outstanding contribution to the advancement of research in fundamental biology." The Prize, although it is not always awarded to a biologist, is one of the most prestigious honours a natural scientist can receive. Ther ...

) *

Reiji Okazaki was a pioneer Japanese molecular biologist, known for his research on DNA replication and especially for describing the role of Okazaki fragments along with his wife Tsuneko. Okazaki was born in Hiroshima, Japan. He graduated in 1953 from Nagoya ...

, molecular biologist, 1970 *

Kimishige Ishizaka was a Japanese immunologist who, with his wife Teruko Ishizaka, discovered the antibody class Immunoglobulin E (IgE) in 1966–1967. Their work was regarded as a major breakthrough in the understanding of allergy. He was awarded the 1973 Gairdn ...

, immunologist, 1973 *

Kiyoshi Itô Kiyoshi, (きよし or キヨシ), is a Japanese given name, also spelled Kyoshi. Possible meanings *'' Kyōshi'', a form of Japanese poetry *Kyōshi, a Japanese honorific Possible writings *清, "cleanse" *淳, "pure" *潔, "undefiled" *清志, ...

, mathematician, 1977 (2006

Gauss Prize The Carl Friedrich Gauss Prize for Applications of Mathematics is a mathematics award, granted jointly by the International Mathematical Union and the German Mathematical Society for "outstanding mathematical contributions that have found significan ...

) * Susumu Tonegawa, molecular biologist, 1981 (1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) *

Tasuku Honjo is a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist. He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is best known for his identification of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). He is also known for his molecular identification o ...

, immunologist, 1981 (2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) *

Hidesaburo Hanafusa was a Japanese virologist. He shared the 1982 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Harold E. Varmus and J. Michael Bishop for demonstrating how RNA tumor viruses cause cancer, and elucidating their role in combining, rescuing and ...

, virologist, 1983 * Masaki Watanabe, orthopedic surgeon, 1983 * Yasutomi Nishizuka, biochemist, 1985 (1994 Wolf Prize in Medicine) *

Motoo Kimura (November 13, 1924 – November 13, 1994) was a Japanese biologist best known for introducing the neutral theory of molecular evolution in 1968. He became one of the most influential theoretical population geneticists. He is remembered in geneti ...

, biologist, 1986 (1992

Darwin Medal The Darwin Medal is one of the medals awarded by the Royal Society for "distinction in evolution, biological diversity and developmental, population and organismal biology". In 1885, International Darwin Memorial Fund was transferred to the ...

) *

Kamiokande The is a neutrino and gravitational waves laboratory located underground in the Mozumi mine of the Kamioka Mining and Smelting Co. near the Kamioka section of the city of Hida in Gifu Prefecture, Japan. A set of groundbreaking neutrino experim ...

Project Team (Leader:

Masatoshi Koshiba was a Japanese physicist and one of the founders of neutrino astronomy. His work with the neutrino detectors Kamiokande and Super-Kamiokande was instrumental in detecting solar neutrinos, providing experimental evidence for the solar neutrino ...

), 1987 (2002 Nobel Prize in Physics) *

Masaki Kashiwara is a Japanese mathematician. He was a student of Mikio Sato at the University of Tokyo. Kashiwara made leading contributions towards algebraic analysis, microlocal analysis, D-module, ''D''-module theory, Hodge theory, sheaf theory and represent ...

/ Takahiro Kawai, mathematician, 1987 *

Hirotsugu Akaike was a Japanese statistician. In the early 1970s, he formulated the Akaike information criterion (AIC). AIC is now widely used for model selection, which is commonly the most difficult aspect of statistical inference; additionally, AIC is the ba ...

, statistician, 1988 *

Tadamitsu Kishimoto is a Japanese immunologist known for research on IgM and cytokines, most famously, interleukin 6. He did postdoctoral work under Kimishige Ishizaka, the discoverer of IgE at Johns Hopkins University. He is listed by the Institute for Scientif ...

, immunologist, 1988 (2009

Crafoord Prize The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foun ...

) *

Tadatsugu Taniguchi is a Japanese immunologist known for his pioneer research on Interferons and Interferon regulatory factors. Contribution Taniguchi's work is mostly focused on immunity and oncogenesis, in particular on the mechanisms of signal transduction a ...

, immunologist, 1988 *

Tomisaku Kawasaki was a Japanese pediatrician who first described the condition now known as Kawasaki disease in the 1960s. Alongside rheumatic heart disease, Kawasaki disease is considered to be the leading cause of acquired heart disease in children worldwide. ...

, pediatrician, 1989 *

Masato Sagawa Masato Sagawa (佐川眞人; born August 3, 1943, in Tokushima, Japan) is a Japanese scientist and entrepreneur, and the inventor of sintered permanent magnet NdFeB. Sagawa was awarded the Japan Prize in 2012 for inventing and developing the h ...

, Metallurgist, 1990 (2012 Japan Prize) *

Goro Shimura was a Japanese mathematician and Michael Henry Strater Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at Princeton University who worked in number theory, automorphic forms, and arithmetic geometry. He was known for developing the theory of complex multipli ...

, mathematician, 1991 * Ryoji Noyori, chemist, 1992 (2001 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) *

Masatoshi Takeichi is a Japanese cell biologist known for his identification of the cadherin class of adhesion molecules, which plays important roles in the construction of tissues. He shared the 2005 Japan Prize with Erkki Ruoslahti for "fundamental contribution ...

, biologist, 1993 * Makoto Kobayashi, physicist, 1994 (2008 Nobel Prize in Physics) * Toshihide Masukawa, physicist, 1994 (2008 Nobel Prize in Physics) *

Nobutaka Hirokawa (born March 25, 1946) is a Japanese neuroscientist and cell biologist famous for research on the kinesin superfamily of motor proteins. He has been President and Chair of the Board of Trustees at the Human Frontier Science Program since 2012. C ...

, neuroscientist, 1995 * Syukuro Manabe, meteorologist, 1995 (2021 Nobel Prize in Physics) *

Sumio Iijima is a Japanese physicist and inventor, often cited as the inventor of carbon nanotubes. Although carbon nanotubes had been observed prior to his "invention", Iijima's 1991 paper generated unprecedented interest in the carbon nanostructures and ...

, physicist, 1996 *

Shigekazu Nagata is a Japanese biochemist, best known for research on apoptosis, the process of programmed cell death occurring in multi-cellular organisms. Contribution Nagata identified Interferon in 1980 and Granulocyte colony-stimulating factor in 1986 ...

, molecular biologist, 1997 *

Super Kamiokande Super-Kamiokande (abbreviation of Super-Kamioka Neutrino Detection Experiment, also abbreviated to Super-K or SK; ja, スーパーカミオカンデ) is a Neutrino detector, neutrino observatory located Kamioka Observatory, under Mount Ikeno ...

Project Team (Leader: Yoji Totsuka), 1998 *

Toshio Yanagida (born 1946) is a Japanese biophysicist famous for his pioneer research in single molecule biology, and made important contributions to single molecule fluorescence microscopy. Contribution Yanagida has been leading the development of single m ...

, biophysicist, 1998 *

Seiji Ogawa Seiji Ogawa (小川誠二 ''Ogawa Seiji'', born January 19, 1934) is a Japanese biophysicist and neuroscientist known for discovering the technique that underlies Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI). He is regarded as the father of moder ...

, physicist, 1999 *

Shuji Nakamura is a Japanese-born American electronic engineer and inventor specializing in the field of semiconductor technology, professor at the Materials Department of the College of Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB), and is rega ...

, material scientist, 2000 (2014 Nobel Prize in Physics) *

Isamu Akasaki was a Japanese engineer and physicist, specializing in the field of semiconductor technology and Nobel Prize laureate, best known for inventing the bright gallium nitride ( GaN) p-n junction blue LED in 1989 and subsequently the high-brightness ...

, material scientist, 2000 (2014 Nobel Prize in Physics) *

Shizuo Akira (born January 27, 1953 in Higashiōsaka) is a professor at the Department of Host Defense, Osaka University, Japan. He has made ground-breaking discoveries in the field of immunology, most significantly in the area of innate host defense mechani ...

, immunologist, 2005 *

Takao Kondo is a Japanese biologist and professor of biological science at Nagoya University in Nagoya, Japan. He is best known for reconstituting the circadian clock ''in vitro''. Biography Kondo was born in 1948 in Kariya, Aichi, Japan, and received his ...

, biologist, 2006 *

Osamu Shimomura was a Japanese organic chemist and marine biologist, and Professor Emeritus at Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole, Massachusetts and Boston University School of Medicine. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 for th ...

, chemist, 2006 (2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry) *

Shinya Yamanaka is a Japanese stem cell researcher and a Nobel Prize laureate. He serves as the director of Center for iPS Cell (induced Pluripotent Stem Cell) Research and Application and a professor at the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences at Kyo ...

, biomedical scientist, 2007 (2012 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) *

Yoshinori Ohsumi is a Japanese cell biologist specializing in autophagy, the process that cells use to destroy and recycle cellular components. Ohsumi is a professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology's Institute of Innovative Research.Yoshinori Ohsumi's He rec ...

, biologist, 2008 (2016 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) *

Hayabusa was a robotic spacecraft developed by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) to return a sample of material from a small near-Earth asteroid named 25143 Itokawa to Earth for further analysis. ''Hayabusa'', formerly known as MUSES-C ...

Mission (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency), 2010 *

Kenji Kosaka was a Japanese politician. Biography Kosaka was born in the city of Nagano in Nagano Prefecture, on 12 March 1946. His father is Zentaro Kosaka, also a politician. Kenji Kosaka received a law degree from Keio University in 1968. He worked ...

, psychiatrist, 2013 *

Kazutoshi Mori is a Japanese molecular biologist known for research on unfolded protein response. He is a professor of Biophysics at the Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University, and shared the 2014 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award with Peter W ...

, molecular biologist, 2013 (2014

Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research The Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research is one of the prizes awarded by the Lasker Foundation for a fundamental discovery that opens up a new area of biomedical science. The award frequently precedes a Nobel Prize in Medicine; almost 5 ...

) *

Hiroaki Mitsuya is a Japanese virologist famous for his role in discovery of the anti-HIV drug zidovudine (AZT) as well as other anti-AIDS drugs including didanosine (ddI) and zalcitabine (ddC). Mitsuya was born in Sasebo, Nagasaki and received his M.D. and Ph. ...

, virologist, 2014 *

Satoshi Ōmura is a Japanese biochemist. He is known for the discovery and development of hundreds of pharmaceuticals originally occurring in microorganisms. In 2015, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine jointly with William C. Campbell fo ...

, biochemist, 2014 (2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine) *

Hiraku Nakajima Hiraku Nakajima (Japanese: 中島啓 ''Nakajima Hiraku''; born November 30, 1962) is a Japanese mathematician, and a professor of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe at the University of Tokyo. He will be Internat ...

, mathematician, 2016 * Jaw-Shen Tsai, Taiwanese physicist, 2020 *

Takurō Mochizuki Takurō Mochizuki (望月拓郎, born 28 August 1972) is a Japanese mathematician at Kyoto University. Overview As a student at the University of Kyoto in 1994, Mochizuki left his undergraduate studies early to become a graduate student in ma ...

, mathematician, 2020 (2022 Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics) * Keiko Torii, plant scientist, 2021

References

External links

*
Website of the Asahi Shimbun
with information on the award winners sorted by year of award
Website of the Asahi Shimbun
with information on the winners from 2001 to 2017
Website of the Asahi Shimbun
with information on the winners from 1971 to 2000
Website of the Asahi Shimbun
with information on the winners from 1929 to 1970
Website of the Asahi Shimbun
with information on the winners from 1929 to recent years and a description of the achievements since 2000 {{in lang, en Academic awards Awards established in 1929 Visual arts awards Japanese science and technology awards 1929 establishments in Japan