, also spelt as Hideo Mohri, is a Japanese biologist. He is best known for the discovery of

tubulin Tubulin in molecular biology can refer either to the tubulin protein superfamily of globular proteins, or one of the member proteins of that superfamily. α- and β-tubulins polymerize into microtubules, a major component of the eukaryotic cytosk ...

Life

He was born on 6 June 1930. He is the great-grandson of Duke Sadahiro Mōri, the 28th head of the

Mōri clan The was a Japanese clan, Japanese samurai clan descended from Ōe no Hiromoto. Ōe no Hiromoto was descended from the Fujiwara clan. The family's most illustrious member, Mōri Motonari, greatly expanded the clan's power in Aki Province. Durin ...

. He is also related to the

Tokugawa clan The is a Japanese dynasty which produced the Tokugawa shoguns who ruled Japan from 1603 to 1868 during the Edo period. It was formerly a powerful ''daimyō'' family. They nominally descended from Emperor Seiwa (850–880) and were a branch of ...

through his grandmother Masako, who was a sister of Marquess

Yoshichika Tokugawa Marquess was a Japanese botanist, hunter, patron of the arts and sciences, and politician. He was the 19th head of the Owari-Tokugawa family, one of the '' Tokugawa Gosanke''. Life Yoshichika was born into the Matsudaira family of Echizen ( ...

, the botanist. His maternal grandmother, Ariko, was the daughter of the founder of

Shiseido is a Japanese multinational cosmetic company founded in Tokyo, Japan in 1872. Its product categories consist of: skin care, makeup, body care, hair care, and fragrances. The company is one of the oldest cosmetic companies in the world an ...

Arinobu Fukuhara was a Japanese business tycoon and pharmacist and cosmetician, who was the head of Apothecary Shiseidō (which in 1927 would be incorporated as Shiseidō Company, Ltd.) and . Arinobu Fukuhara, is known internationally because of the Arinobu Fuk ...

, and through him, he is related to the Nobel laureate in Chemistry, Ryoji Noyori. He graduated from the

University of Tokyo The University of Tokyo (, abbreviated as in Japanese and UTokyo in English) is a public research university in Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan. Founded in 1877 as the nation's first modern university by the merger of several pre-westernisation era ins ...

's Faculty of Science, Department of Zoology in 1953. His specialisation was in reproductive biology and animal physiological chemistry. He continued research on

sperm Sperm (: sperm or sperms) is the male reproductive Cell (biology), cell, or gamete, in anisogamous forms of sexual reproduction (forms in which there is a larger, female reproductive cell and a smaller, male one). Animals produce motile sperm ...

at the graduate school of his alma mater and the university's

Misaki Misaki (, "misaki") are a collective term for spirit-like existences in Japan like gods, demons and spirits, among other supernatural entities. Their name comes from a kannushi's vanguard. Summary Misaki are subordinate to the high-ranking di ...

Marine Biological Centre from 1968 to 1990. He elucidated the constituent proteins of the sperm flagellum's structural body (

cytoskeleton The cytoskeleton is a complex, dynamic network of interlinking protein filaments present in the cytoplasm of all cells, including those of bacteria and archaea. In eukaryotes, it extends from the cell nucleus to the cell membrane and is compos ...

). In 1968, he determined the amino acid composition of the microtubule's constituent proteins and named it

. From 1987 to 1989, he served as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In 1991, he retired from the University of Tokyo and was conferred the title of professor emeritus.

References

{{Reflist University of Tokyo alumni Academic staff of the University of Tokyo Japanese biologists 1930 births Living people Mōri clan Scientists from Chiba Prefecture