Susumu Tonegawa, whose early years of research at UC San Diego and the Salk Institute in La Jolla contributed to subsequent insights that earned him the 1987 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,\u00a0died on July 11 in San Mateo. He was 86.<\/p>\n
His death was announced<\/a> by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, his home for near 50 years. The institute did not cite a cause for his passing.<\/p>\n Tonegawa was a molecular biologist whose name wasn\u2019t widely known outside the scientific community. But his work has improved public health globally. The Nobel Prize Committee said<\/a> Tonegawa revealed how a limited number of genes can shuffle and rearrange to create millions of unique antibodies.<\/p>\n These insights have helped scientists search for ways to treat everything from cancer and autoimmune diseases to schizophrenia, researchers say.<\/p>\n He was the first native of Japan to win the Nobel in Physiology and Medicine. This medal is often awarded to two or three scientists. But Tonegawa won it alone.<\/p>\n Tonegawa\u2019s earliest significant research occurred at Japan\u2019s Kyoto University, where he studied chemistry. He grew tired of that subject and moved to UC San Diego, where David Bonner, one of the nation\u2019s pre-eminent scientists, was turning the biology department into powerhouse.<\/p>\n The young Tonegawa earned a doctorate in molecular biology in 1968. He then became a researcher at the newly-founded Salk Institute, directly across Torrey Pines Road from UCSD. Tonegawa was then named a postdoctoral fellow under Renato Dulbecco, who soon became famous. He shared the 1975 Nobel in Physiology or Medicine.<\/p>\n Tonegawa\u2019s heady years at MIT didn\u2019t wash away his memory of UCSD.<\/p>\n