The Helicobacter pylori bacterium was discovered by Robin Warren and Barry Marshall in Australia in 1983. In order to prove that Helicobacter pylori cause chronic gastritis or gastric ulcer, Dr. Marshall himself drank cultured Helicobacter pylori, which led him to contract acute gastritis. This finding won Warren and Marshall the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 2005.

IARC (International Agency for Research on Cancer), a part of the World Health Organization, recognized Helicobacter pylori as a Group 1 carcinogen (“definite carcinogen”) by conducting an epidemiological survey in 1994. Moreover, in 1998 doctors in Japan reported that gastric cancer appeared in Meriones unguiculatus infected with Helicobacter pylori 1.5 years earlier, making the bacteria and gastric cancer link stronger.

Dr. Uemura and his colleagues examined a group of 1,526 patients to see if they were infected by Helicobacter pylori. These patients were given endoscopy exams from 1990 to 1993 due to having gastric ulcers and so on. In the group, 280 patients were not infected, while 1,246 were. Dr. Uemura and his team conducted a follow-up survey on these patients for seven or eight years. Thirty-six (2.9%) of the 1,246 Helicobacter pylori infected patients were found to have gastric cancer, while none of the 280 patients not infected by Helicobacter pylori had gastric cancer. In 2001 they published the results in an article in the American medicine magazine, “The New England Journal of Medicine”, and received international praise.

Another significant finding from Uemura’s work is that 253 test subjects from the group that was infected by Helicobacter pylori were treated and then cleared of the bacteria. These patients did not contract gastric cancer for the next 4 to 8 years. This shows that gastric cancer can be prevented by treating for Helicobacter pylori. Critical studies are now being advanced because of this discovery.

Not all gastric cancers are developed by Helicobacter pylori. Patients who are not infected with Helicobacter pylori rarely get gastric cancers. Roughly 99% of gastric cancers are related to Helicobacter pylori.

He was born in the Yamane family in Masuda City, Shimane Prefecture, in 1873 and adopted the Hata family when he was 14. He went on to the Third Senior School Medical Faculty (now renamed Medical School, Okayama University) because the Hata family produced a long line of doctors. After graduation, he entered the Institute of Infectious Disease in 1898 (established by Doctor Kitasato) and worked on the research of bacteriology for ten years.

He then went to study in Germany in 1907, moved to the National Institute for experimental Therapeutics in Frankfurt in 1909, and was involved in the research of drugs for syphilis therapy under the guidance of Paul Ehrlich.

Hata took charge of the animal experiments, and confirmed that 606 medicines made of arsenic were effective against syphilis in June of the same year. The research results were presented in the academic society the next year, and the medicine that had been named arsphenamine No.606 came to be used as a treatment for syphilis.

There had been no effective treatment for syphilis. However, treatment became possible for the first time through the development of arsphenamine.  Arsphenamine had played a central role in the treatment of syphilis, but after World WarⅡantibiotics replaced it because antibiotics are an organic arsenic compound with toxicity.

Moreover, it is particularly worth nothing that arsphenamin is the first synthetic chemical in the world.

Kimura was born in Okazaki, Aichi Prefecture in 1924. He studied botany in Kyoto University’s science department and, after studying in the U.S., entered the National Institute of Genetics and was engaged in genetic research.

It was believed that the evolution of genes at the molecular level was by natural selection, as told by Darwin’s theory of evolution. That is, variation caused by mutation would allow species to continue surviving, while those that did not adapt by changing would not survive. However, when Kimura investigated the variation of protein amino acid sequence caused by natural selection, he came to the conclusion that there was no link with natural selection. Thus, he introduced the neutral theory of molecular evolution in 1968. In his opinion, the evolution of a gene is not only based on natural selection, but also happens by a neutral mutation that spreads by chance, irregardless of whether it is advantageous or not.

Since this theory disputed contents of Darwin’s theory of evolution, which at the time was hugely accepted, it generated disagreement and received criticism from many scholars around the world.

However, after the base sequence of DNA was investigated, it revealed that genetic variation happens for particular reasons/functions, but there were also mutations with no identifiable purposes. If Darwin’s theory is correct, variation arises to perform functions. But due to the fact that this was not always the case, Kimura’s neutral theory was accepted as an established theory.

In 1992, Kimura was awarded the Darwin Medal from The Royal Society in Darwin’s birth country, Britain, where he was exposed to criticism at the beginning. It was the first time it was awarded to a Japanese person, and is still the only. The Darwin Medal is a highly-regarded prize, which The Royal Society awards to a biologist who attains outstanding achievements, and is given only once every two years. It is equal to the Nobel Prize. Obtaining such success in Darwin’s mother country speaks of the greatness in Kimura’s achievements.

Rejection has always been an issue in transplantation. When tissues, cells or organs are introduced to another species, they are recognized by the recipient’s body as being foreign and attacked by the immune system. In xenotransplantation, the distant evolutionary relationship between any two species can lead to hyperacute rejection.

To reduce the risk of rejection, a genetically modified source animal was used in this experimental transplant. They had produced a “aGal-knokout” genetically modified cow clone without aGal antigen which would trigger an immunological response in monkies and humans.

The cloned cow was born in December and did not survive for long. Kidneys were taken out after it died and were transplanted to the monkey. After the operation, the monkey showed no sign of hyperacute rejection and was able to urinate, which proved that kidneys functioned normally. The recipient monkey died the next day, of causes unrelated to rejection.

However, he was told that this vaccine had no effect on yellow fever in Africa, so in 1927(Showa 2) he went to Africa to investigate. Six months later on May 21st, 1928(Showa 3), Noguchi died from yellow fever in the Republic of Ghana at 51 years old. Newspapers around the world reported his death. Noguchi’s funeral was held in grand scale at the Rockefeller Institute. He was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in New York City in June.

Noguchi was born in Fukushima Prefecture in 1876(Meiji 9). At the age of two, he fell in a sunken hearth and burnt his left hand. He was operated on, which led to his interest in the field of medicine. With the warm support of those around him, Noguchi overcame a variety of difficulties and received a license from the National Examination for Medical Practitioners. He was the youngest to receive one at that time, as he was only twenty years old. Since he thought that he had a handicap with his bad hand, Noguchi started his career as an assistant at a laboratory where an authority on infectious diseases, Shibasaburo Kitasato, worked.

Noguchi was dispatched to China after he discovered plague bacillus. In 1900(Meiji 33), he achieved his long-cherished dream of studying in the US to expand his research on basic medical science. To this end, Noguchi joined the University of Pennsylvania as an assistant.  He later went abroad to study at National Serum Institute in Denmark. Upon completion of his studies in Denmark, Noguchi returned to the US, where he was welcomed as an assistant at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

Noguchi’s academic activities were well received. He announced his achievements in research in many papers and contributed heavily to the development of medicine.
His research and clinics inscribed greatly into the history of medicine.
 
In Japan in July, 2006(Heisei 18) a decision to create the Hideyo Noguchi Africa Prize (野口英世アフリカ賞) was given. This international prize, equivalent to the Nobel Prize, will be given to people who contribute cures to infections and diseases, human prosperity and world peace through medical research and services in Africa. Arrangements are now being made for awarding the prize for the first time in 2008(Heisei 20).

The National Cancer Center’s Digestive Organs Endoscope Doctor, Takuji Gotoda, (with more than 500 operations in 1995 alone) and the Cancer Institute Hospital and the Shizuoka Cancer Center Endoscope Department’s Director Hiroyuki Ono are the leading ESD authorities in the world.

At the time, soldiers in the Imperial Japanese Navy suffered from beriberi. Takaki, Director General of Japanese Naval Medical Services, noticed a correlation between the diet of sailors and beriberi. In the course of improving the diet, he succeeded in eradicating the disease in the Japanese Navy.

Kanehiro Takaki (高木 兼寛) was born Oct. 30, 1849. The young Takaki studied Western medicine under a British physician William Willis. In 1875, he went to England to continue his medical education as a naval officer. After having 5 years’ training at St. Thomas’s Medical School in London, he returned to Japan and started research on beriberi.

At the time, beriberi was considered endemic to Japan and a serious problem on warships affecting naval efficiency. However, Takaki noticed that the incident of beriberi was considerably low among the Japanese naval officers. He observed that living conditions on warship were similar throughout the navy, except that there was considerable variation in the diet.

Takaki noticed that naval officers who ate various types of vegetables and meat rarely suffered from beriberi, whereas ordinary crewmen who ate only white rice were the victims. From what he had observed, Takaki assumed that the cause of beriberi was dietary deficiency.

Although beriberi was a common issue to the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy, Takaki’s dietary theory was not accepted by the Army. To prove his theory, therefore, Takaki developed an enriched diet with barley mixed rice that was tested on the training ship Tsukuba in 1884 as it sailed to New Zealand, South America, and Hawaii.

This voyage experimentally reproduced an 1883 cruise of the training ship Ryujo that resulted in 161 cases of beriberi, 25 of which were fatal, among the 376 crewmen who were eating the white-rice diet. The cruise of Tsukuba, in contrast, ended up with no beriberi victims.

Due to the success of the experiment, Takaki’s diet plan was adopted in the Imperial Navy. As a result, the incidence of beriberi in the fleet dropped from 30 % to 0 % in six years.

Despite the success in the navy, Japanese medical community and the army doctors believed in the infectious theory of beriberi and held onto the white-rice diet for decades. In 1884, more than one-fourth of soldiers in the army suffered from beriberi. During the Sino-Japanese and Russo-Japanese War, soldiers were more likely to die from beriberi than from combat trauma.
Takaki’s findings came 10 years before Dutch medical officer Christian Eijkman discovered that beriberi was caused by nutritional deficiency, substance lacked in polished rice, which would be later identified as vitamin B1.
Takaki founded the Jikei University School of Medicine, the first private medical college in Japan. He also founded the first nursing training school. He put more emphasis on the prevention and treatment of disease than research of disease. He told his students to see a patient as a human being suffering from illness.
Kanehiro Takaki (高木 兼寛) died on April 13, 1920.

Trivia:
A peninsula in Antarctica at 65 deg 33 min south; 64 de 34 min west is names Takaki Promontory after Kanehiro Takaki (高木 兼寛), which is the only peninsula in Antarctica named after a Japanese.

Under Umezawa, who is the antibiotic division manager of the National Institute of Health (present day National Institute of Infectious Diseases), a new water-soluble substance was obtained from actinomycetes separated from one of the soil specimens collected from around Japan. This specimen came from the foot of a Shinshu Utsukushigahara. The curative effect of this substance on tuberculosis in experiments with mice and guinea pigs, and on humans was confirmed by the rapid recovery from tubercular ulcer of the bladder. The substance was identified as kanamysin.

Kanamysin has low acoustic nerve toxicity compared with streptomycin, which was the anti-tuberculosis drug of the day, and also showed remarkable effects in neutralizing staphylococcus, coliform bacillus, tubercle bacillus, and dysentery bacillus. The Microbe Institute for Chemical Research was founded by revenue generated from using the patented kanamysin.
Kanamysin was also the first antibiotic drug in domestic production.

Kasugamycin was discovered in the culture solution of ray fungus in 1963, from experiments to find a new rice blast fungicide from microbe metabolic products. The name kasugamycin came from the mold that was extracted from the soil of the Kasuga Taisha precincts in Nara. The reason why it is still being used to this day is largely based on its effectiveness in fighting on rice blast, and its harmlessness towards animals, plants and the environment.

Clinical treatments on squamous cell carcinoma caused by bleomycin were examined by Atsuji Ichikawa in 1965, while searching for anticancer antibiotics. Its approval came in 1968 as a curative medicine for squamous cell carcinoma and malignant lymphoma, and is used in many countries presently.

The discovery of vitamin began with investigation into the cause of the disease beriberi. In 1987, Christiaan Eijkman, a Dutch military physician, discovered that rice bran cured chickens’ beriberi-like polyneuritis. Owing to Eijkman’s work, many scientists began to extract substances from rice bran that could be used to treat victims of beriberi.

In Japan Umetaro Suzuki (鈴木 梅太郎) was one of the pioneers in this research. He confirmed that animals fed without rice bran developed polyneuritis and that could be prevented by adding rice bran to their diets. Further, he successfully isolated the active factor in rice bran. He named the factor “aberic acid” and was granted its patent.

In 1910, Suzuki presented his discovery before Tokyo Chemical Society. Unfortunately, as most of the medical community thought beriberi was the result of a microbial infection, his findings were ignored.

Although he published his paper in Germany in 1911, that could not draw their attentions. In the same year, Casimir Funk, a Polish biochemist, reported he crystallized an amine substance from rice bran and named it “vitamin.” (It was now believed Funk crystallized nicotinic acid.)

Despite being the first to discover vitamin B1, Suzuki could not gain the world recognition as the pioneer, perhaps because he did not determine its chemical composition, and did not identify it as a new nutritional substance in his German paper.

Umetaro Suzuki (鈴木 梅太郎) was born April 7, 1874. Trained at the Faculty of Agricultural Technology of the Tokyo Imperial University, he had a postgraduate research in Germany as a student of famed chemist, Emil Fisher.

At present, excessive accumulation of β amyloid protein can only be confirmed through postmortem tests. If accumulation of theβ amyloid protein is identified in a patient when he or she is alive, the development to prevent neuronal cells from dying rapidly is possible.

In 1969, he successfully developed the technique of colonoscopic polypectomy using an expandable fiberoptic scope. Without requiring abdominal surgery, patients have been able to get a safer and painless treatment. His revolutionary “Shinya Method” has become a standard in colonoscopy.

He has examined more than 300,000 stomachs and large intestines, and performed nearly 100,000 polypectomies since then. From his experience, he has become realized that there’s a strong connection between intestinal appearances and lifestyle related disease. He emphasizes the importance of lifestyle and healthy eating habit for longevity and health.

Dr. Shinya recommends dividing food intake to 90% fruits and vegetables and 10% protein. He says, “Be disciplined with the food you eat. Remember, you are what you eat!”

* In 1989, he discovered that some T cells are developed in the liver, intestine and excretion glands. Those T cells are distinguished from conventional T cells developed in thymus and named “extrathymic T cell.”

* In 1996, he found that leukocytes, which play an important role in the immune system, are regulated by the autonomic nervous system. The harmonic interchange between the sympathetic and parasympathetic nerves in the autonomic nervous system keeps the balance of leukocytes. When the sympathetic is dominant, the number of granulocytes in leukocytes increases. When the parasympathetic is activated, on the other hand, the number of lymphocytes increases, the study reveals.

* In 2000, he revealed that gastric ulcer, an inflammatory disease, is triggered by the chronic dominance of granulocytes in white blood cells, not by the gastric acid hypersecretion.

His findings suggest how the stress affects the immune system. The autonomic nervous system becomes disturbed and out-of-balance when the sympathetic nerve has been stayed on guard against the long-term stress, which hinders the white-blood-cell mediated immune function. The chronic exposure to the stress depresses the immune system.

Dr. Abo asserts that the most important thing you can do for your immune system is to achieve lifestyle balance and reduce stress in your living. This will give your immune system what it needs to function at optimal capacity to prevent and remedy diseases.

In 1896 after graduating the Medical School of Tokyo Imperial University, Shiga started his medical career at the Institute for the Study of Infectious Diseases under Dr.Shibasaburo Kitasato (北里柴三郎) who discovered the tetanus bacillus.

In 1987 Shiga was able to isolate the organism now known as Shigella dysenteriae from faeces and intestinal wall in victims of dysentery. In 1900 he developed a dysentery antiserum.

Shigella was named after Kiyoshi Shiga (志賀潔).

Kazuo Misumi’s chosen “Best doctors in Japan” is chosen by the doctor’s evaluation. It might be proof with a so advanced arm in the one by excellent information on the clinician and about 50,000 people on 30 countries or more in the world that consists of the specialized field of 40 or more.
 Misumi is authority of a cardiac catheter, but, as for the catheter, advanced technology is necessary on the doctor though he inserts a thin catheter into the blood vessel and patient’s burdens decrease by the thing to restore the blood flow of the part of the blockade more than an operation concerning a surgery without incising a blood vessel.
Mr. Misumi is the one, the second prize in Japan in this number of means though the way of putting a catheter in the coronary artery of the heart and curing it called PTCA (percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty).
Furthermore, it is proud of the best treatment actual results with the drill which attached the head of the diamond to the point of this catheter ,”Rotor brator” ,which smashes the thrombus and so on which became lime in the world.
Before, though re-constriction was easy to have after the means,now it came to be taken the net-shaped pipe called “Stent” in the point as well where a blood flow was recovered.
Furthermore, Mr. Misumi tells “Re-constriction almost disappeared by making medicine soak into that Stent and putting it.”, and it is said that Mr. Misumi is proud of the number of cases of domestic tops as to this medicine Stent.

The career of Mr. Kazuo Misumi <From Chiba west general hopital HP >
In 1952,in November,born in Osaka City .
In 1982, graduation from medical department of Tokyo Medical and Dental University .At the time of the graduation, Nagao A learning encouragement prize (a gold watch) winning a prize.
In the same year, Tokyo Medical and Dental University  medical department the third internal medicine department entrance into a company.
In 1985, visit to America. After heart blood vessel sickness reason is researched in Illinois university Chicago school, in New York medical college, University of California and University of Pittsburgh, internal medicine department resident training, circulatory organ clinical fellow training end.
UCLA In Good Samaritan hospital, a heart heart blood vessel catheter treatment special fellow training end in 2 and a half.
From 1996, Hawaiian university, a clinical assistant professor.
From 1998, Chiba west general hopital heart center head, training chairperson.
From 2000, this vice-director.
From 2003, Tokyo Medical and Dental University, a clinical professor.
From 2004, Chiba west general hopital hospital manager.

Doctor of Medicine.
U.S. internal medicine department academic meeting medical specialist regular member.
U.S. heart disease academic meeting medical specialist regular member.
A Japanese internal medicine department academic meeting medical specialist councilor.
A Japanese circulatory organ academic meeting medical specialist.
A Japanese heart  blood vessel intervention academic meeting advising doctor, councilor.
A Japanese coronary disease academic meeting councilor.
A Japanese geriatrics academic meeting medical specialist.

Bipolar disorder is a mental disorder, affecting possibly one in a hundred people. The pathogenic mechanism, however, has not yet been discovered.

Kato, a member of the research team, proposed that the cause is related to a depletion in Mitochondrial DNA, which produces energy in cells. Pursuing this enquiry, he succeeded in producing the model mice whose mitochondrial DNA is abnormal only in the brain.

A normal mouse is nocturnal, active when it is dark and and dormant when it is light. This model mouse, however, stayed active for some time even in light conditions, and became active before dark. It is recognized that this abnormal behavior in mice is similar to human abnormal behavior in bipolar disorder.

In addition, when given drugs, some mice increased their activity levels, exhibiting bipolar symptoms, while others showed improvement depending on the medication administered.

It was researchers’consensus opinion that there was no established model animal for bipolar disorder until then.

The assumptions regarding Mitochondria DNA’s role in bipolar disorder have been strongly supported in this long-running inquiry. But one of the reasons the development of a curative medicine has been delayed is that there has not been a model animal for bipolar disorder. This first model mouse could contribute to a discovery of the pathogenic mechanism behind bipolar disorder and the development of a medicinal cure.

A patent has been applied for the development of model animals in bipolar disorder research.

Hitoshi Kihara (October 21, 1893 – July 27,1986,) majored in plant physiology at the Department of Agriculture of Hokkaido Empire University, graduating in 1918. He went on to graduate school where he began his research into wheat. He was appointed assistant in the Department of Science at Kyoto Empire University in 1920 and assistant professor in the Department of Agriculture at this university in 1924, when he presented his dissertation. It was extensively read by his international peers who went so far as to call it the textbook of genetic engineering. For three years (1924-1927) he was in Europe and the United States studying with geneticists Correns and others. After returning to Japan, he was promoted to full professor in 1927, and continued in this position to research until 1956 the genetics of wheat, specializing in genome analysis.

When a cell of an organism divides in two, the genetic material DNA in the nucleus changes into a chromosome in order to be equally divided. Every organism has chromosomes of a determined number, shape and size; for example, humans have 46 chromosomes, 23 kinds for each pair.

Based on his genome theory, Kihara researched the genetic code of species closely related to wheat and examined the process of evolution. He continued to develop this method of analyzing genomes collecting results of his. He formulated a hypothesis that wheat for use in bread was generated from the hybridization of macaroni wheat with 14 chromosomes with other species with having 7. He subsequently discovered a wild species that confirmed his theory during field expeditions in, among others, Afghanistan and Iran. This discovery of the wheat’s ancestor made the name of Mr. Kihara known all over the world.
He also helped to develop new wheat species that were resistant to insects and disease. His genome analysis method was applied to other plants yielding results in research into genealogy, evolution and breed improvement of plants. The seedless watermelon was on result of these breeding advances.

His efforts were internationally acclaimed as landmark achievements.
Moreover, it was through his remarkable accomplishments that the genetics of cultivated plant evolution was fully understood, becoming the foundation for the field of genetics in Japan.

In 1955, immediately before his retirement from Kyoto University, he became head of the National Institute of Genetics where he carried on his work till 1969. He then became head of the Kihara Institute for Biological Research (Foundation), established in Kyoto in 1942 and subsequently moved to Yokohama. He became the honored head in 1984 when this Institute was transferred to Yokohama City University. In 1948, he received an Order of Culture.

Besides his professional interest in genetics, he was an avid sportsman. He was a member of the Hokkaido University skiing club and was a pioneer in the skiing world. He was a leader of Japanese team at the 1960 Squaw Valley Winter Olympics in the US, in which saw Japanese full scale participation in the post-war period, and then again at the next in 1964 Winter Olympics at Innsbruck, Austria. He was an active member of the Organizing Committee for the 1972 Winter Olympics in Sapporo.

Shirota discovered a type of lactobacillus bacteria and succeeded in repeated culturing and refinement ofit, producing a strengthened strain. As this was the first of its kind in the world, the bacterium was named “L. casei strain Shirota“. It was used, and still is being used, in the lactic acid bacteria drink”Yakult“.

Most lactic acid bacteria died before reaching the bowels, but the strengthened bacteria that Shirota cultured reached the bowels.

In his childhood, Shirota came upon the idea of “preventive medicine”.
Shirota was from Inadani, enclosed by high mountains. The land was steep, crops did not grow well, and families lived in destitute. Children were dying one after another because of infectious diseases such as dysenteries.
To save children, Shirota made the decision to become a doctor.

After Shirota’s success with intraintestinal lactic acid bacteria, he established Yakult Ltd. “People are able to buy Yakult by spending the cost of just one postcard or cigarette,” became the company slogan, meaning that a person with little money can also maintain his or her health. “A healthy intestinal tract leads to long life,” was the idea of the company.

Just pop a spatula onto your tongue for 60 sec, plug the saliva-steeped stick into the COCORO METER, and it will be able to tell just how stressed you are.

The meter works by measuring the level of amylase in the saliva. The more stressed out you are, the higher the amount of amylase is.

Results come in four levels; low, moderate, high, very high.

COCOMO METER is compact; 87mm in height, 130mm in width, 40mm in thickness, and 190g in weight.

In 1946 Kato thought that lack of protein made the Japanese physique poorer when compared with those of Americans and Europeans. So he challenged his employees to develop the manufacturing of protein. Shukuro Kinoshita, who had just joined the company, went to work on creating a method of producing amino acids, which consist of protein, as it was more costly to produce just protein. To begin, Kinoshita paid attention to glutamic acid, which was already on the market.

Kikunae Ikeda succeeded in extracting glutamic acid from kombu (sea tangle) for the first time in the world. Ajinomoto Co., Inc., had already produced glutamic acid by hydrolyzing and extracting the protein of wheat and soy beans, but the amount of acid contained in protein was very little and costly to produce, driving up the price. Although Ajinomoto reviewed the method of chemical synthesis, it wasn’t put to practical uses.   

Kinoshita and others began to examine a fermentation method. This fermentation technique involved fermenting glucidic materials such as dextrin and molasses to produce amino acids. Some advantages of this method are that the materials didn’t cost alot and didn’t generate unnecessary by-products, unlike chemical synthesis. 

First of all, Kinoshita and team began looking for a glutamic acid strain. Shigezo Udaka found the strain (No.534 strain, Corynebacterium glutamicum) in soil that was mixed with animal dung at Ueno Zoo in Taito Ward, Tokyo. 
 
Next, they began to study the actual method of manufacturing. They could multiply the bacteria but could not generate glutamic acid just by culturing. However, in the course of their examinations, they discovered that the cell membranes of this strain received damage, and glutamic acid was secreted outside the cell when the level of biotin vitamin got insufficient. At that time, it was thought that microbes would not secrete amino acids, which were necessary for life preservation. This discovery overturned the theory.

Due to this find, it became possible to consistently generate glutamic acid. By fermenting microbes, KYOWA HAKKO KOGYO Co., Ltd. succeeded in 1956 to generate monosodium glutamates for the first time in the world. With this manufacturing method, glutamic acid, which had been expensive to make, came to be mass- produced inexpensively.   

Today, the production of glutamic acid via fermentation is done in all parts of the world. Annual production is reaching one million tons. Moreover, other amino acids are being produced by fermentation, and mainly in Japan.

There are about 600,000 people, including children, throughout the country that have to get daily injections to treat their diabetes. Terumo and Okano Industries (headquarters Tokyo) developed a painless injection needle specially designed to provide maximum patient comfort when they inject themselves with insulin syringes several times a day. Using 28G as a basis for the needle, the tip is as sharp as 33G and the injection resistance felt when patients inject themselves is comparable to that of a 31G syringe.

Because of the doubly tapered construction, injection resistance will increase when the tip of the needle is sharpened. Masayuki Okano of Okano Industry overcame this technological challenge by applying his stainless steel press craftsman skills to create this needle.

They won the Good Design Award in 2005. It was seen as a very exciting Japanese product. It was elected a “Japanesque Modern” product.
The Japanesque Modern Council selects products, methods and others that combine traditional culture, materials, technology, spirit, and advanced technology of Japan.