Tasuku Honjo is a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist. He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is best known for his identification of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1).
He is also known for his molecular identification of cytokines: IL-4 and IL-5, as well as the discovery of activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) that is essential for class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation.
Honjo in 2013
At Nobel press conference in Stockholm, December 2018
Shun'ichi Iwasaki, Ken Takakura, Seikaku Takagi [ja], Susumu Nakanishi and Honjo received the Order of Culture from Emperor Akihito on November 3, 2013. After that they posed for photo with Shinzō Abe at the East Garden of the Imperial Palace.
With Masuo Aizawa [ja] on August 26, 2010
The Japan Academy is an honorary organisation and science academy founded in 1879 to bring together leading Japanese scholars with distinguished records of scientific achievements. The Academy is currently an extraordinary organ of the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology with its headquarters located in Taito, Tokyo, Japan. Election to the Academy is considered the highest distinction a scholar can achieve, and members enjoy life tenure and an annual monetary stipend.
Japan Imperial Academy, presently "Japan Academy"
Founder of Meiroku Society, Keio University, and the First President of Tokyo Academy