is a Japanese molecular biologist and computer scientist, best known as the director of the E-Cell simulation environment software and/or the inventor of

GLR parser A GLR parser (GLR standing for "Generalized LR", where L stands for "left-to-right" and R stands for "rightmost (derivation)") is an extension of an LR parser algorithm to handle non-deterministic and ambiguous grammars. The theoretical foundatio ...

algorithm.Tomita M. (1984).
LR parsers for natural languages
. COLING. 10th International Conference on Computational Linguistics. pp. 354–357. He is a professor of

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endowmen ...

, president of the Institute for Advanced Biosciences, and the

founder Founder or Founders may refer to: Places *Founders Park, a stadium in South Carolina, formerly known as Carolina Stadium * Founders Park, a waterside park in Islamorada, Florida Arts, entertainment, and media * Founders (''Star Trek''), the ali ...

and

board member A board of directors (commonly referred simply as the board) is an executive committee that jointly supervises the activities of an organization, which can be either a for-profit or a nonprofit organization such as a business, nonprofit organi ...

of Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. He is also the

co-founder An organizational founder is a person who has undertaken some or all of the formational work needed to create a new organization, whether it is a business, a charitable organization, a governing body, a school, a group of entertainers, or any other ...

and on the board of directors of The Metabolomics Society. His father is composer

Isao Tomita , often known simply as Tomita, was a Japanese composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realiz ...

. From Oct. 2005 to Sep. 2007, he served as Dean of Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University. He received an M.S. (1983) and a Ph.D. (1985) in computer science from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. One of its predecessors was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools; it became the Carnegie Institute of Technology ...

(CMU) under

Jaime Carbonell Jaime Guillermo Carbonell (July 29, 1953 – February 28, 2020) was a computer scientist who made seminal contributions to the development of natural language processing tools and technologies. His extensive research in machine translation result ...

, and two other doctoral degrees in electronic engineering and molecular biology from

Kyoto University , mottoeng = Freedom of academic culture , established = , type = National university, Public (National) , endowment = ¥ 316 billion (2.4 1000000000 (number), billion USD) , faculty = 3,480 (Teaching Staff) , administrative_staff ...

(1994) and

Keio University , mottoeng = The pen is mightier than the sword , type = Private research coeducational higher education institution , established = 1858 , founder = Yukichi Fukuzawa , endowmen ...

(1998). At CMU, starting in 1985, Dr. Tomita achieved a series of academic promotions from assistant professor to associate professor of computer science and from 1986 he became an associate director of the Center for Machine Translation. In 1990, he returned to Keio University, Japan, and served as associate professor until 1997. At Keio University, he shifted his research emphasis to the studies of

molecular biology Molecular biology is the branch of biology that seeks to understand the molecular basis of biological activity in and between cells, including biomolecular synthesis, modification, mechanisms, and interactions. The study of chemical and physi ...

and

systems biology Systems biology is the computational modeling, computational and mathematical analysis and modeling of complex biological systems. It is a biology-based interdisciplinary field of study that focuses on complex interactions within biological syst ...

. Dr. Tomita is a recipient of the

Presidential Young Investigator Award The Presidential Young Investigator Award (PYI) was awarded by the National Science Foundation of the United States Federal Government. The program operated from 1984 to 1991, and was replaced by the NSF Young Investigator (NYI) Awards and Presiden ...

from the National Science Foundation of the USA (1988), an IBM Japan Science Prize (2002), an IBM Shared University Research Award (2003), a Minister of Science and Technology Policy Award (2004), and The Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2007).

Selected papers

*"Building Working Cells 'in Silico'", Science 1999; 284-5411:80 - 81 *"Going for Grand Challenges", Nature 1999; 402:C70 *"E-CELL: Software environment for whole cell simulation", Bioinformatics 1999; 15:72-84 *"Computerized role models: Japan's push to create a virtual cell signals a new approach to research", Nature 2002; 417 *"Multiple high-throughput analyses monitor the response of E. coli to perturbations", Science 2007; 316:593-7

References

External links

Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Keio University

Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc.

The E-Cell Project

The Metabolomics Society
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tomita, Masaru Living people Carnegie Mellon University alumni Keio University alumni Japanese computer scientists Japanese molecular biologists 1957 births