Emeritus Professor Masahiro Sugiura has received the Person of Cultural Merit designation for FY2009.
Professor Masahiro Sugiura completed three degrees at Nagoya University. After graduating from the School of Science in 1960, he completed his Master of Science degree in 1962, and obtained his Doctor of Science degree in 1967. Professor Sugiura worked at Hiroshima University, Kyoto University, and the National Institute of Genetics before becoming a Professor in the School of Science at Nagoya University in 1982, and subsequently becoming the Director of the Center for Gene Research in 1984. He retired in 2000, subsequently working at Nagoya City University, and is currently a guest researcher at the Sugiyama Jogakuen Sugiyama Human Research Center.
Emeritus Professor Sugiura is an expert in research on chloroplasts, the photosynthetic organs of plants. He received the Person of Cultural Merit designation for being the first to determine the entire chloroplast genome base sequence for tobacco for 160,000 base pairs in the fields of plant molecular biology and plant genome science, developing a system for accurately reproducing gene expression mechanisms unique to chloroplasts, and for establishing the field of chloroplast engineering. Chloroplast engineering is expected to lead to applications such as development of medical drugs and environmental cleanup methodologies. Professor Sugiura is also noted for his many significant contributions to the development of related scholarly fields.
