Koichi Tanka

Happy birthday to Nobel Prize winner Koichi Tanaka (田中 耕). Tanaka won a share of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing a novel method for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules with John Bennett Fenn and Kurt Wüthrich (the latter for work in NMR spectroscopy). Tanaka was born and raised in Toyama, Japan. He attended Toyama Chubu High School in Toyama City. In 1983, he graduated from Tohoku University with a bachelor’s degree in electrical engineering. After graduation, he joined Shimadzu Corporation, where he engaged in the development of mass spectrometers. On the Nobel Prize web site there’s a small autobiographical essay by Tanaka which is worth reading in full (see http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/2002/tanaka-bio.html). Here’s a snippet: " ...I cannot say that I was a particularly diligent student, especially during the lower grades. One event, however, did make a lasting impression on me, and that was Expo ’70, Japan’s first world fair, held in Osaka in 1970. The Exposition site displayed the future of technology, which would actually be realized 20 to 30 years later. I truly felt the power of science and technology. Our teacher for the last three years of elementary school was Mr. Kyosei Sawagaki. He taught us not by having us memorize textbooks, but through the joy of performing scientific experimentation and discovering phenomena with our own eyes. One day our teacher showed us an experiment in which boric acid was first dissolved in water, and then re-crystallized. As I watched and experienced this incredible phenomenon, I blurted out, “It’s starting to snow!” While this would have been considered incorrect as an answer in a test, my teacher cherished that response. That was when I discovered that learning could be enjoyable, and not just a painful experience....”

Date in History: 3 August 1959