was a

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

neuroscientist A neuroscientist (or neurobiologist) is a scientist who has specialised knowledge in neuroscience, a branch of biology that deals with the physiology, biochemistry, psychology, anatomy and molecular biology of neurons, neural circuits, and glial ...

known for his pioneering research on

neurotransmitters A neurotransmitter is a signaling molecule secreted by a neuron to affect another cell across a synapse. The cell receiving the signal, any main body part or target cell, may be another neuron, but could also be a gland or muscle cell. Neurot ...

and ion channels, and for his contributions to the understanding of molecular mechanisms of neural signalling.

Biography

Numa was born in

Wakayama, Japan is a prefecture of Japan located in the Kansai region of Honshu. Wakayama Prefecture has a population of 944,320 () and has a geographic area of . Wakayama Prefecture borders Osaka Prefecture to the north, and Mie Prefecture and Nara Prefecture ...

and completed his M.D. in 1952 at Kyoto University. He studied at

Harvard Medical School Harvard Medical School (HMS) is the graduate medical school of Harvard University and is located in the Longwood Medical Area of Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1782, HMS is one of the oldest medical schools in the United States and is consi ...

with John Lawrence Oncley and worked at the Max Planck Society with

Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen Feodor Felix Konrad Lynen (; 6 April 19116 August 1979) was a German biochemist. In 1964 he won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine together with Konrad Bloch for their discoveries concerning the mechanism and regulation of cholesterol an ...

, before he became Professor of Medical Chemistry at the Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University in 1968. He died of colon cancer on February 15, 1992, at the age of 63.

Contributions

Numa and co-workers cloned and sequenced the cDNA and delineated the primary structures of different families of receptors and channels including a neurotransmitter-gated channel (

nicotinic acetylcholine receptor Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors, or nAChRs, are receptor polypeptides that respond to the neurotransmitter acetylcholine. Nicotinic receptors also respond to drugs such as the agonist nicotine. They are found in the central and peripheral ner ...

), voltage-gated channels (

sodium channel Sodium channels are integral membrane proteins that form ion channels, conducting sodium ions (Na+) through a cell's membrane. They belong to the superfamily of cation channels and can be classified according to the trigger that opens the chann ...

and calcium channel), an intracellular membrane channel ( calcium-release channel), and a G-protein-coupled receptor (

muscarinic acetylcholine receptor Muscarinic acetylcholine receptors, or mAChRs, are acetylcholine receptors that form G protein-coupled receptor complexes in the cell membranes of certain neurons and other cells. They play several roles, including acting as the main end-rec ...

Recognition

For his great achievements, Numa was awarded numerous honours and awards including, most outstandingly, the Japan Academy Prize in 1985. He was elected as a foreign member of

the Royal Society The Royal Society, formally The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge, is a learned society and the United Kingdom's national academy of sciences. The society fulfils a number of roles: promoting science and its benefits, r ...

in 1986, as a member of the

German Academy of Natural Scientists Leopoldina The German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina (german: Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften), short Leopoldina, is the national academy of Germany, and is located in Halle (Saale). Founded ...

in 1990, and as a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America in 1991. He was selected as a Person of Cultural Merit by the Government of Japan in 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Numa, Shosaku 1929 births 1992 deaths Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Foreign Members of the Royal Society Japanese molecular biologists Japanese neuroscientists Kyoto University alumni Kyoto University faculty People from Wakayama Prefecture