is a Japanese chemist, who was awarded the 2019

Japan Prize is awarded to people from all parts of the world whose "original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for mankind." The P ...

for his groundbreaking work in asymmetric polymerization and its practical applications in drug discovery. Okamoto was the first to prove that synthetic polymer conformations could be controllable, publishing work on asymmetric polymerization from 1979 onwards. This led to the development by Okamoto and others of helical polymers for use in

high performance liquid chromatography High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), formerly referred to as high-pressure liquid chromatography, is a technique in analytical chemistry used to separate, identify, and quantify each component in a mixture. It relies on pumps to pa ...

columns (HPLC), enabling easy separation of

chiral 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 ...

drug molecules.

Education and career

Okamoto received his B.S. (1964), M.S. (1966), and Ph.D. (1969) degrees from

Osaka University , abbreviated as , is a public research university located in Osaka Prefecture, Japan. It is one of Japan's former Imperial Universities and a Designated National University listed as a "Top Type" university in the Top Global University Project. ...

, and served as assistant professor and associate professor at the university from 1969 to 1990. In 1990 he became a professor at

Nagoya University , abbreviated to or NU, is a Japanese national research university located in Chikusa-ku, Nagoya. It was the seventh Imperial University in Japan, one of the first five Designated National University and selected as a Top Type university of T ...

. After retiring in 2004, he was appointed Guest Professor of EcoTopia Science Institute, Nagoya University. He was appointed as Chair Professor of Harbin Engineering University in 2007. Awards for his work include the Award of Society of Polymer Science, Japan (1982), The Chemical Society of Japan Award for 1999, Chirality Medal (2001), Medal with Purple Ribbon (Japanese Government) (2002), Fujiwara Prize (2005), and the Japan Prize (2019).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okamoto, Yoshio 1941 births Living people Japanese chemists Osaka University alumni Osaka University faculty Nagoya University faculty Harbin Engineering University faculty Japanese expatriates in China 20th-century Japanese scientists 20th-century chemists 21st-century chemists 21st-century Japanese scientists