International Council for Science (ICSU)
, candidate presentations, p. 22 is a Japanese

chemist A chemist (from Greek ''chēm(ía)'' alchemy; replacing ''chymist'' from Medieval Latin ''alchemist'') is a scientist trained in the study of chemistry. Chemists study the composition of matter and its properties. Chemists carefully describe th ...

who is a professor at the Department of Life Sciences at the

University of Tokyo , abbreviated as or UTokyo, is a public research university located in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Established in 1877, the university was the first Imperial University and is currently a Top Type university of the Top Global University Project by ...

Early life and education

Kuroda was born in Akita but grew up in Miygai, on the island of

Honshu, Japan , historically called , is the largest and most populous island of Japan. It is located south of Hokkaidō across the Tsugaru Strait, north of Shikoku across the Inland Sea, and northeast of Kyūshū across the Kanmon Straits. The island separa ...

. She obtained her MSc (1972) and PhD (1975) in Chemistry from the University of Tokyo. Her doctorate focused on determining the stereochemistry of metal complexes.

Career

After her PhD, Kuroda worked at

King's College London King's College London (informally King's or KCL) is a public research university located in London, England. King's was established by royal charter in 1829 under the patronage of King George IV and the Duke of Wellington. In 1836, King's ...

and the

Institute of Cancer Research The Institute of Cancer Research (the ICR) is a public research institute and a member institution of the University of London in London, United Kingdom, specialising in oncology. It was founded in 1909 as a research department of the Royal Mar ...

in the UK before returning to Japan in 1986. In 1992 she became the first woman to be made full professor of natural sciences at the University of Tokyo. Kuroda's field of research is primarily

chirality Chirality is a property of asymmetry important in several branches of science. The word ''chirality'' is derived from the Greek (''kheir''), "hand", a familiar chiral object. An object or a system is ''chiral'' if it is distinguishable from ...

within both

inorganic chemistry Inorganic chemistry deals with synthesis and behavior of inorganic and organometallic compounds. This field covers chemical compounds that are not carbon-based, which are the subjects of organic chemistry. The distinction between the two disci ...

and

organic chemistry Organic chemistry is a subdiscipline within chemistry involving the scientific study of the structure, properties, and reactions of organic compounds and organic materials, i.e., matter in its various forms that contain carbon atoms.Clayden, J.; ...

.Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences: Two prominent researchers elected to the Academy's class for chemistry
press announcement, June 30, 2009 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. Her team later used

CRISPR CRISPR () (an acronym for clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is a family of DNA sequences found in the genomes of prokaryotic organisms such as bacteria and archaea. These sequences are derived from DNA fragments of bacte ...

genetic editing to show that this process is dependent on a single gene, Lsdia1. 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 The Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre (CCDC) is a non-profit organisation based in Cambridge, England. Its primary activity is the compilation and maintenance of the Cambridge Structural Database, a database of small molecule crystal struc ...

in 2006. She has also served as Vice-President for External Relations in the

International Science Council The International Science Council (ISC) is an international non-governmental organization that unites scientific bodies at various levels across the social and natural sciences. The ISC was formed with its inaugural general assembly on 4 July 201 ...

Honours and awards

in 1993, Kuroda received the

Saruhashi Prize The Saruhashi Prize (猿橋賞) is an annual prize awarded to a Japanese woman researcher in the natural sciences. The prize recognises accomplishments in research as well as the mentoring of other women scientists. Japanese geochemist Katsuko Sar ...

for esteemed female scientists. On June 10, 2009, Kuroda was elected a foreign member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

in its class for chemistry. 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

External links

Kuroda Research Group

Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuroda, Reiko Japanese chemists Japanese women chemists University of Tokyo faculty Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences 1947 births Living people Japanese women academics L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science laureates 21st-century women scientists