List of Japanese Nobel laureates and nominees

Since 1949, there have been 30 Japanese laureates of the Nobel Prize. The Nobel Prize is a Sweden-based international monetary prize. The award was established by the 1895 will and estate of Swedish chemist and inventor Alfred Nobel. It was first awarded in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine, Literature, and Peace in 1901. An associated prize, thus far, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel, also sometimes known as the Nobel Prize in Economics, has yet to be awarded to a Japanese national.

The Japanese Nobel Prize Laureate (2010) Akira Suzuki and Ei-ichi Negishi

The Nobel Prizes in the above specific sciences disciplines and the Prize in Economics, which is commonly identified with them, are widely regarded as the most prestigious award one can receive in those fields.^[1][2] Of Japanese winners, twelve have been physicists, eight chemists, three for literature, five for physiology or medicine, and two for efforts towards peace.^[2]

In the 21st century, in the field of natural science, the number of Japanese winners of the Nobel Prize has been second behind the U.S.

Summary

Number of Nobel laureates by category

Category	Japanese citizens/ organizations	Others born as Japanese citizens	Total	Others born in Japanese colonies	Remarks
Physics	9	3	12	-	Yoichiro Nambu, Shuji Nakamura, and Syukuro Manabe became American citizens.
Chemistry	8	-	8	2	Charles J. Pedersen has half Japanese ancestry (listed under the Diaspora), but Yuan T. Lee is not.
Physiology or Medicine	5	-	5	-
Literature	2	1	3	-	Kazuo Ishiguro became a British citizen in 1983.[3][4]
Peace	2	-	2	-
Total	26	4	30	2	Japanese media usually count 29 laureates (excluding Kazuo Ishiguro).

Laureates

Year	Portrait	Laureate (birth/death)	Field	Rational	Undergraduate alma mater
Citizens
1949		Hideki Yukawa (1907 – 1981)	Physics	"for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces."[5]	KyotoU
1965		Shin'ichirō Tomonaga (1906 – 1979)	Physics	"for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles."[6] (jointly with American theoretical physicists Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman)	KyotoU
1968		Yasunari Kawabata (1899 – 1972)	Literature	"for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind."[7]	UTokyo
1973		Leo Esaki (1925 – )	Physics	"for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively."[8] (jointly with Norwegian-American physicist Ivar Giaever and shared with Welsh theoretical physicist Brian David Josephson)	UTokyo
1974		Eisaku Satō (1901 – 1975)	Peace	"for his contribution to stabilize conditions in the Pacific rim area and for signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."[9] (shared with Irish politician Seán MacBride)	UTokyo
1981		Kenichi Fukui (1918 – 1998)	Chemistry	"for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions."[10] (jointly with Polish-American theoretical chemist Roald Hoffmann)	KyotoU
1987		Susumu Tonegawa (1939 – )	Physiology or Medicine	"for his discovery of the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity."[11]	KyotoU
1994		Kenzaburō Ōe (1935 – 2023)	Literature	"who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."[12]	UTokyo
2000		Hideki Shirakawa (1936 – )	Chemistry	"for their discovery and development of conductive polymers."[13] (jointly with American chemist Alan MacDiarmid and physicist Alan J. Heeger)	Tokyo Tech
2001		Ryōji Noyori (1938 – )	Chemistry	"for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions."[14] (jointly with American chemist William S. Knowles and shared with American chemist K. Barry Sharpless)	KyotoU
2002		Masatoshi Koshiba (1926 – 2020)	Physics	"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos."[15] (jointly with American chemist Raymond Davis Jr. and shared with Italian-American Riccardo Giacconi)	UTokyo
		Koichi Tanaka (1959 – )	Chemistry	"for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules... [and] for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules."[16] (jointly with American analytical chemist John B. Fenn and Swiss chemist Kurt Wüthrich)	Tohokudai
2008		Makoto Kobayashi (1944 – )	Physics	"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature."[17] (shared with Japanese-American physicist Yoichiro Nambu)	NagoyaU
		Toshihide Maskawa (1940 – 2021)			NagoyaU
		Osamu Shimomura (1928 – 2018)	Chemistry	"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP."[18] (jointly with American neurobiologist Martin Chalfie and biochemist Roger Y. Tsien)	Nagasaki
2010		Ei-ichi Negishi (1935 – 2021)	Chemistry	"for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis."[19] (jointly with American chemist Richard F. Heck)	UTokyo
		Akira Suzuki (1930 – )			Hokudai
2012		Shinya Yamanaka (1962 – )	Physiology or Medicine	"for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent."[20] (jointly with British developmental biologist John B. Gurdon)	KobeU
2014		Isamu Akasaki (1929 – 2021)	Physics	"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources."[21] (jointly with Japanese-born American Shuji Nakamura)	KyotoU
		Hiroshi Amano (1960 – )			NagoyaU
2015		Satoshi Ōmura (1935 – )	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites."[22] (jointly with Irish-American parasitologist William C. Campbell and shared with Chinese pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou)	Nashidai
		Takaaki Kajita (1959 – )	Physics	"for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass."[23] (jointly with Canadian astrophysicist Arthur B. McDonald)	SaitamaU
2016		Yoshinori Ohsumi (1945 – )	Physiology or Medicine	"for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy."[24]	UTokyo
2018		Tasuku Honjo (1942 – )	Physiology or Medicine	"for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation."[25] (jointly with American immunologist James P. Allison)	KyotoU
2019		Akira Yoshino (1948 – )	Chemistry	"for the development of lithium ion batteries."[26] (jointly with American materials scientist John B. Goodenough and British-American chemist M. Stanley Whittingham)	KyotoU
2024		Nihon Hidankyo	Peace	"for its efforts to achieve a world free of nuclear weapons and for demonstrating through witness testimony that nuclear weapons must never be used again."[27]
Diaspora[a]
1987		Charles J. Pedersen[b] (1904 – 1989)	Chemistry	"for their development and use of molecules with structure-specific interactions of high selectivity."[28] (jointly with American chemist Donald J. Cram and French chemist Jean-Marie Lehn)	UDayton
2008		Yoichiro Nambu (1921 – 2015)	Physics	"for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken symmetry in subatomic physics."[17] (jointly with Japanese physicists Toshihide Maskawa and Makoto Kobayashi)	UTokyo
2014		Shuji Nakamura (1954 – )	Physics	"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources."[21] (jointly with Japanese physicists Isamu Akasaki and Hiroshi Amano)	TokushimaU
2017		Kazuo Ishiguro (1954 – )	Literature	"who, in novels of great emotional force, has uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory sense of connection with the world."[29]	Kent
2021		Syukuro Manabe (1931 – )	Physics	"for the physical modelling of Earth's climate, quantifying variability and reliably predicting global warming."[30] (jointly with German climate modeller Klaus Hasselmann and shared with Italian theoretical physicist Giorgio Parisi)	UTokyo

List by alma mater

As of 2021, the list of Nobel Prize winners of Japanese nationality and Japanese ancestry by undergraduate alma mater.

Logo	Institution	Country	Number of laureates
	The University of Tokyo	Japan	9 (1968, 1973, 1974, 1994, 2002, 2008, 2010, 2016, 2021) Yasunari Kawabata, Leo Esaki, Eisaku Satō, Kenzaburō Ōe, Masatoshi Koshiba, Yoichiro Nambu, Ei-ichi Negishi, Yoshinori Ohsumi, Syukuro Manabe
	Kyoto University	Japan	8 (1949, 1995, 1981, 1987, 2001, 2014, 2018, 2019) Hideki Yukawa, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Kenichi Fukui, Susumu Tonegawa, Ryōji Noyori, Isamu Akasaki, Tasuku Honjo, Akira Yoshino
	Nagoya University	Japan	3 (2008, 2014) Makoto Kobayashi, Toshihide Maskawa, Hiroshi Amano
	Hokkaido University	Japan	1 (2010) Akira Suzuki
	Kobe University	Japan	1 (2012) Shinya Yamanaka
	Nagasaki University	Japan	1 (2008) Osamu Shimomura
	Saitama University	Japan	1 (2015) Takaaki Kajita
	Tohoku University	Japan	1 (2002) Koichi Tanaka
	Tokyo Institute of Technology	Japan	1 (2000) Hideki Shirakawa
	Tokushima University	Japan	1 (2014) Shuji Nakamura
	University of Dayton	United States	1 (1987) Charles J. Pedersen
	University of Kent	United Kingdom	1 (2017) Kazuo Ishiguro
	University of Yamanashi	Japan	1 (2015) Satoshi Omura

Number of People by Degree Granting Institutions

By degree (bachelor, master, doctorate) awarded, the number of Japanese alumni awarded by each university is as follows (including those with Japanese nationality and those of Japanese origin; as of October 9, 2019):

• Kyoto University 11
• The University of Tokyo 11
• Nagoya University 5
• Osaka University 2

Only one Japanese degree holder from the following universities has won the Nobel Prize: Hokkaido University, Kobe University, Nagasaki University, Osaka City University, Saitama University, Tohoku University, Tokushima University, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Tokyo University of Science, University of East Anglia, University of California, San Diego, University of Kent, University of Pennsylvania, University of Rochester, University of Yamanashi

Nominees

Image	Nominee[31]	Born	Died	Years Nominated	Citation	Nominator(s)
Physics
	Kotaro Honda	24 March 1870 Okazaki, Aichi, Japan	12 February 1954 Bunkyō, Tokyo, Japan	1932	"for his invention of KS steel which had 250 oersteds magnetic resistance and developed through rigorous basic research on steel and alloys."[32]	Seiji Nakamura (1869–1960)  Japan
						Junzo Okubo (?)  Japan
						Hikoo Saegusa (1890–1948)  Japan
	Hideki Yukawa	23 January 1907 Tokyo, Japan	8 September 1981 Kyoto, Japan	1940	"for his research on elementary particles, particularly for the prediction of a new particle called mesons based on a proposed theory on strong and weak nuclear forces."[33]	Hantaro Nagaoka (1865–1950)  Japan
						Dirk Coster (1889–1950)  Netherlands
				1941		Toshizo Matsumoto (?)  Japan
				1943, 1944		Louis de Broglie (1892–1987)  France
				1945		Maurice de Broglie (1875–1960)  France
				1946		Jean Thibaud (1901–1960)  France
				1946, 1948		Gregor Wentzel (1898–1978)  Germany
				1948		Marcel Schein (1902–1960)  United States
				1949		Theodor Svedberg et al.[c] (1884–1971)  Sweden
						Otto Stern (1888–1969) et al.  Germany
				1950		Harold Urey (1893–1981)  United States
						Harald Wergeland (1912–1987)  Norway
	Shin'ichirō Tomonaga	31 March 1906 Tokyo, Japan	8 July 1979 Tokyo, Japan	1951	"for his fundamental contributions in the development of quantum electrodynamics and for discovering the renormalization method."[34]	Takahiko Yamanouchi (1902–1986)  Japan
						Samuel Devons (1914–2006)  United Kingdom
				1952		Hideki Yukawa (1907–1981)  Japan
				1955		Isao Imai (1914–2004)
				1956		Carl D. Anderson (1905–1991)  United States
						Robert Bacher (1905–2004)  United States
						Robert F. Christy (1916–2012)  United States
				1957		Helmut Hönl (1903–1981)  Germany
						Leonard I. Schiff (1915–1971)  United States
				1960		Norman F. Ramsey Jr. (1915–2011)  United States
				1962		A. K. Dutta (?)  India
				1963		Sidney Drell (1926–016)  United States
				1964		Hans-Arwed Weidenmüller (born 1933)  Germany
						W. Wessel (?)  Germany
				1965		Alfred K. Mann (1920–2013)  United States
	Kazuhiko Nishijima	4 October 1926 Tsuchiura, Ibaraki, Japan	15 February 2009 Tokyo, Japan	1960	"for his contributions to particle physics, particularly on his work on the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula, and the concept of strangeness, which he called the "eta-charge" or "η-charge", after the eta meson."[35]	Marian Günther (1928–?)  Poland
				1961		Frederick Seitz (1911–2008)  United States
				1964		G. Höhler (?)  Germany
				1966		W. Theis (?)  Germany
				1967		Sergio DeBenedetti (?)  United States
						F. Cap (?)  Austria
				1968		Yoichiro Nambu (1921–2015)  Japan
						Jun John Sakurai (1933–1982)  United States
				1969		H. Pierre Noyes (born 1923)  France
						Bunji Sakita (1930–2002)  Japan
						Haakon A. Olsen (1923–2010)  Norway
				1970		Hideki Yukawa (1907–1981)  Japan
	Tadao Nakano	1926 Tokyo, Japan	15 August 2004	1961	"his collaborative work with Nishijima on the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula and quark model."[36]	Frederick Seitz (1911–2008)  United States
				1970		Hideki Yukawa (1907–1981)  Japan
	Susumu Okubo	20 February 1930 Tokyo, Japan	17 July 2015 Rochester, New York, United States	1965	"for the Gell-Mann–Okubo mass formula for mesons and baryons in the quark model whichpredicts the relations of masses of the members of SU(3) multiplets in terms of hypercharge and isotopic spin."[37]	Robert Marshak (1916–1992)  United States
	Yoshio Ōnuki	7 November 1928 Tochigi, Japan	—	1965, 1966	"for his research on the Sakata model based on the Yamaguchi-Ogawa-Ohnuki symmetry determining that hidden particles are equivalent to each other."[38]	Gordon Sutherland (1907–1980)  United Kingdom
	Sigenori Miyamoto	20 October 1931 Akashi, Hyōgo, Japan	31 December 2017 Japan	1966	[39] "for developing a "discharge chamber" (later called "spark chamber") that observes the tracks of high-energy charged particles." [40]	Y. Nogami (?)  Japan
	Shuji Fukui	19 August 1923 Osaka, Japan	4 May 2018 Japan	1966
	Leo Esaki	12 March 1925 Takaida, Higashiōsaka, Osaka, Japan	—	1968	"for his work in electron tunneling in semiconductor materials which finally led to his invention of the Esaki diode, which exploited that phenomenon."[41]	John Bardeen (1908–1991)  United States
	Hiroomi Umezawa	20 September 1924 Kuki, Saitama, Japan	24 March 1995 Edmonton, Alberta, Canada	1968	"for his fundamental contributions to quantum field theory and for his work on quantum phenomena in relation to the mind."[42]	Eduardo R. Caianiello (1921–1993)  Italy
	Jun Kondō	6 February 1930 Tokyo, Japan	11 March 2022 Suginami, Tokyo, Japan	1969	"for his research on the Kondo effect, a scattering of conduction electrons in a metal due to magnetic impurities, resulting in a characteristic change."[43]	Osmund Dorenfeldt Jenssen (1923–2009)  Norway
	Ryogo Kubo	15 February 1920 Tokyo, Japan	31 March 1995 Tokyo, Japan	1970	"for his works in statistical physics, particularly on non-equilibrium statistical mechanics and the theory of fluctuation phenomena."[44]	Yoshio Yamaguchi (1926–2016)  Japan
	Shoichi Sakata	18 January 1911 Tokyo, Japan	16 December 1970 Nagoya, Aichi, Japan	1970	"for his research on subatomic particles and the two meson theory: the Sakata model and the Pontecorvo–Maki–Nakagawa–Sakata neutrino mixing matrix."[45]	Hideki Yukawa (1907–1981)  Japan
Physiology or Medicine
	Kitasato Shibasaburō	29 January 1853 Oguni, Kumamoto, Japan	13 June 1931 Tokyo, Japan	1901	"for his discovery the plague bacillus, independently of Alexandre Yersin."[46]	A. de Bokay (?)  Austria-Hungary
	Oscar Loew*	2 April 1844 Marktredwitz, Bavaria, Germany	26 January 1941 Berlin, Germany	1912	"for his discovery of the antibacterial effect of formaldehyde."[47]	Rudolph Emmerich (1856–1914)  Germany
	Sahachiro Hata	23 March 1873 Masuda, Shimane, Japan	22 November 1938 Tokyo, Japan	1912	"for his work on chemotherapy."[48]	Hayazō Itō (1864–1929)  Japan
				1913	"for the development of a drug against spirillosis."[48]	Gakutaro Osawa (1863–1920)  Japan
	Umetaro Suzuki	7 April 1874 Makinohara, Shizuoka, Japan	20 September 1943 Tokyo, Japan	1914	"for his work on essential substances in rice and their importance in beri-beri."[49]	Wolfgang Heubner (1877–1957)  Germany
	Ryukichi Inada	18 March 1874 Nagoya, Aichi, Japan	27 February 1950 Tokyo, Japan	1919	"for their discovery of the spirochaete of hemorrhagic icterus."[50][51]	Louis Martin (1864–1946)  France
	Ido	—	—	1919
	Yamagiwa Katsusaburō	23 February 1863 Ueda, Nagano, Japan	2 March 1930 Tokyo, Japan	1925	"for his work on epithelial tumors."[52]	Harno Hayashi (?)  Japan
						Matarō Nagayo (1878–1941)  Japan
						C. Yokote (?)  Japan
						Shūzō Kure (1865–1932)  Japan
				1926	"for his research on experimentally induced tumors."[52]	Ludwig Aschoff (1866–1942)  Germany
				1928	"for being the first to show that malignant tumors, carcinoma and sarcoma, could be produced by application of tar to the tissues of certain mammals."[52]	Alexander A. Maximow (1874–1928)  United States
				1936	"for his work on the production of tumors with chemical substances."[52]	R. Kimura (?)  Japan
	Genichi Kato	11 February 1890 Niimi, Okayama, Japan	1 May 1979 Niimi, Okayama, Japan	1928	"for his investigations in the field of nerve-muscle physiology and establishing a new theory of decrementless conduction of nerve impulses."[53]	Sahachiro Hata (1873–1938)  Japan
						13 Japanese physicians
				1935	"for his work on the isolation of single nerve fibers and muscle fibers and demonstration of the existence of reflex excitatory fibers and reflex inhibitory fibers."[53]	23 Japanese physicians[d]
						Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936)  Soviet Union
				1937	"for his work on the microphysiology of nerve muscle."[53]	Mariano Rafael Castex (1886–1968)  Argentina
	Ken Kuré	27 October 1883 Tokyo, Japan	27 June 1940 Tokyo, Japan	1931, 1937	"for his work on the tonic and trophic innervation of voluntary muscles and spinal parasympathicus, and progressive muscular dystrophy."[54]	M. Itagaki (?)  Japan
				1933		Seizaburo Nasu (?)  Japan
				O. Kimura (?)  Japan
				1935		Tomosaburō Ogata (1883–1973)  Japan
						19 Japanese physicians
						Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936)  Soviet Union
				1936	"for his work on the autonomous innervation of skeletal muscle, progressive muscular dystrophy and spinal parasympaticus."[54]	H. Okabayashi (?)  Japan
				1937		N. Onodera (?)  Japan
				1939	"for his work on the autonomous innervation of skeleton muscle and progressive muscular dystrophy."[54]	Naomi Kageura (?)  Japan
	Takaoki Sasaki	5 May 1878 Tokyo, Japan	31 October 1966 Tokyo, Japan	1935	"for his work on the production of tumors with chemical substances."[55]	Kenzo Tamura (?)  Japan
						Kunihiko Hashida (1882–1945)  Japan
				1936		R. Kimura (?)  Japan
						C. Ogawa (?)  Japan
				1939	"for his work on experimentally induced liver tumors using chemical means (o-amidoazotoluol)."[55]	S. Tsunoo (?)  Japan
						K. Hirai (?)  Japan
						T. Naito (?)  Japan
Literature
	Toyohiko Kagawa	10 July 1888 Kobe, Hyōgo, Japan	23 April 1960 Tokyo, Japan	1947	A Shooter at the Sun (1925) Love - The Law of Life (1930) Meditations on the Cross (1935) Songs from the Slums (1935) Brotherhood Economics (1936)[56]	Knut B. Westman (1881–1967)  Sweden
				1948		Sven Hedin (1865–1952)  Sweden
	Jun'ichirō Tanizaki	24 July 1886 Tokyo, Japan	30 July 1965 Yugawara, Kanagawa, Japan	1958	Naomi (1925) Some Prefer Nettles (1929) Quicksand (1928–1930) Arrowroot (1931) In Praise of Shadows (1933) The Makioka Sisters (1943–48) The Key (1956) Childhood Years: A Memoir (1957) Diary of a Mad Old Man (1961)[57]	Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973)  United States
				1960		Sigfrid Siwertz (1882–1970)  Sweden
				1961		The Japanese Authors' Union
				1962		Howard Hibbett (1920–2019)  United States
				1963		Donald Keene (1922–2019)  United States
				1964, 1965		Harry Martinson (1904–1978)  Sweden
	Junzaburō Nishiwaki	20 January 1894 Ojiya, Niigata, Japan	5 June 1982 Ojiya, Niigata, Japan	1958, 1960, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967	Spectrum (1925) Ambarvalia (1933) No Traveler Returns (1947) Modern Fables (1953)[58][59]	Naoshirō Tsuji (1899–1979)  Japan
				1961		The Japanese Authors' Union
				1963		Japan Academy
				1968
	Yasunari Kawabata	11 June 1899 Osaka, Japan	16 April 1972 Zushi, Kanagawa, Japan	1961, 1963	Snow Country (1948) Thousand Cranes (1952) The Master of Go (1954) The Sound of the Mountain (1954) The House of the Sleeping Beauties (1961) The Old Capital (1962) Dandelions (1972)[60]	Henry Olsson (1896–1985)  Sweden
				1962		The Japanese P.E.N. Club
				1964, 1965		Harry Martinson (1904–1978)  Sweden
				1966		Karl Ragnar Gierow (1904–1982)  Sweden
				1967		Howard Hibbett (1920–2019)  United States
				1968		Eyvind Johnson (1900–1976)  Sweden
	Yukio Mishima	14 January 1925 Tokyo, Japan	25 November 1970 Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan	1963	Confessions of a Mask (1949) The Sound of Waves (1954) The Temple of the Golden Pavilion (1956) The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea (1963) Sun and Steel (1968) The Sea of Fertility (1969–1971)[61]	Johannes Rahder (1898–1988)  Netherlands
				1964, 1965, 1967		Harry Martinson (1904–1978)  Sweden
				1968		Henry Olsson (1896–1985)  Sweden
	Yasushi Inoue	6 May 1907 Asahikawa, Hokkaido, Japan	29 January 1991 Tokyo, Japan	1969	The Bullfight (1949) Hyōheki (1956) The Roof Tile of Tempyō (1957) Tun-huang (1959)[62]	Erich Ruprecht (1906–1997)  Germany
	Sei Itō (posthumously nominated)	16 January 1905 Matsumae, Hokkaido, Japan	15 November 1969 Tokyo, Japan	1970	Snow-lit Road (1926) Streets of Fiendish Ghosts (1937) Senkichi Narumi (1948) History of Japanese Literary Circles (1955–1969)[63]	Kōjirō Serizawa (1897–1993)  Japan
	Tatsuzō Ishikawa	2 July 1905 Yokote, Akita, Japan	31 January 1985 Tokyo, Japan	1970	Sōbō (1935) Soldiers Alive (1945) Kinkanshoku (1966)[64]
Peace
	Nagao Ariga	13 November 1860 Osaka, Japan	17 May 1921 Tokyo, Japan	1909	No motivation given.[65]	V. H. Hilty (?)   Switzerland
	Shibusawa Eiichi	16 March 1840 Fukaya, Saitama, Japan	11 November 1931 Tokyo, Japan	1926	"for his involvement in almost every enterprise associated with Japanese industrial development and worked to improve the relations between the United States and Japan concerning the legal status of Japanese workers in California."[66]	Tasuku Harada (1863–1940)  Japan
						Katō Takaaki (1860–1926)  Japan
				1927		Wakatsuki Reijirō (1866–1949)  Japan Kijūrō Shidehara (1872–1951)  Japan
	Toyohiko Kagawa	10 July 1888 Kobe, Hyōgo, Japan	23 April 1960 Tokyo, Japan	1954	"for his work for reconciliation among nations."[56]	Tetsu Katayama (1887–1978)
						Emily Greene Balch (1867–1961)  United States
				1955		5 members of the Norwegian Storting
				1956		7 members of the Norwegian Storting
				1960	No motivation given.[56]	Jōtarō Kawakami (1889–1965)  Japan
						Motojirō Sugiyama (1885–1964)  Japan
						Tokutarō Kitamura (1886–1968)  Japan
	Nobusuke Kishi	13 November 1896 Tabuse, Yamaguchi, Japan	7 August 1987 Tokyo, Japan	1960	"for his work for disarmament and banning of nuclear weapons."[67]	Spessard Holland (1892–1971)  United States
	Daisetsu Teitaro Suzuki	18 October 1870 Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan	12 July 1966 Kamakura, Kanagawa, Japan	1963	"for his high cultural achievements."[68]	Hideo Kishimoti (1903–1964)  Japan
	Shigeru Yoshida	22 September 1878 Yokosuka, Kanagawa, Japan	20 October 1967 Tokyo, Japan	1965	"for his efforts to prevent the Pacific War although it was in vain, and his devotion to the restoration of peace."[69]	Eisaku Satō (1901–1975)  Japan
						3 Finnish nominators
				1966	"for his efforts to prevent the Pacific War, and for his efforts to bring restoration of peace."[69]	Kisaburo Yokota (1896–1993)  Japan
				1967	No motivation given.[69]	Shigeru Kuriyama (1886–1971)  Japan
					3 members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration
	Hideki Yukawa	23 January 1907 Tokyo, Japan	8 September 1981 Kyoto, Japan	1966	No motivation given[33]	Hideo Kaneko (1934–2013)  Japan
						Selhataro Salsadia (?)  Japan
	Yoshio Koya	1890 Japan	1974 Japan	1968	"for his many outstanding services to humanity and for his pioneering efforts as a world-renowned gynecologist that the birth rate and rate of induced abortions in Japan have declined."[70]	Martin Allwood (1916–1999)  Sweden
	Kaoru Hatoyama	21 November 1888 Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan	15 August 1982 Tokyo, Japan	1969	"for her contribution to the reopening of diplomatic relations between Japan and the U.S.S.R., and Japan's entry into the United Nations, and for her contribution to the Yuai ("Fraternity") Movement and for her achievements as an educator."[71]	members of the Japanese Government and Parliament

Notes

Physics

Shoichi Sakata reported the "Sakata model" - a model of hadrons in 1956, that inspired Murray Gell-Mann and George Zweig's quark model. Moreover, Kazuhiko Nishijima and Tadao Nakano originally given the Gell-Mann–Nishijima formula in 1953.^[72] However, 1969 physics prize was only awarded to Murray Gell-Mann. Afterward, Ivar Waller, the member of Nobel Committee for Physics was sorry that Sakata had not received a physics prize.^[73]

Yoji Totsuka was leading the experiment that the first definitive evidence for neutrino oscillations was measured, via a high-statistics, high-precision measurement of the atmospheric neutrino flux. His Super-K group also confirmed, along with the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO), the solution to the solar neutrino problem. The Nobel Prize winning physicist Masatoshi Koshiba was told that if Totsuka could extend his lifespan by eighteen months, he would receive the physics prize.^[74]

Chemistry

Eiji Osawa prediction of the C₆₀ molecule at Hokkaido University in 1970.^[75][76] He noticed that the structure of a corannulene molecule was a subset of an Association football shape, and he hypothesised that a full ball shape could also exist. Japanese scientific journals reported his idea, but it did not reach Europe or the Americas.^[77][78] Because of this, he was not awarded the 1996 chemistry prize.

Seiji Shinkai invented the first molecular machine in 1979,^[79] but he was not awarded the 2016 chemistry prize. On the contrary, Ben Feringa, one of the 2016 Nobel laureates, made a special trip to Japan in the 1980s to ask Shinkai for advice in the research.^[80]

Physiology or Medicine

Kitasato Shibasaburō and Emil von Behring working together in Berlin in 1890 announced the discovery of diphtheria antitoxin serum; Von Behring was awarded the 1901 prize because of this work, but Kitasato was not. Meanwhile, Hideyo Noguchi^[81] and Sahachiro Hata,^[82] those who missed out on the early Nobel Prize for many times.

Katsusaburō Yamagiwa and his student Kōichi Ichikawa successfully induced squamous cell carcinoma by painting crude coal tar on the inner surface of rabbits' ears. Yamagiwa's work has become the primary basis for research of cause of cancer.^[83] However, Johannes Fibiger was awarded the 1926 medicine prize because of his incorrect Spiroptera carcinoma theory, while the Yamagiwa group was snubbed by Nobel Committee. In 1966, the former committee member Folke Henschen claimed "I was strongly advocate Dr. Yamagiwa deserve the Nobel Prize, but unfortunate it did not realize".^[84] In 2010, the Encyclopædia Britannica 's guide to Nobel Prizes in cancer research mentions Yamagiwa's work as a milestone without mentioning Fibiger.^[85]

Umetaro Suzuki completed the first vitamin complex was isolated in 1910.^[86] When the article was translated into German, the translation failed to state that it was a newly discovered nutrient, a claim made in the original Japanese article, and hence his discovery failed to gain publicity. Because of this, he was not awarded the 1929 medicine prize.

Satoshi Mizutani^[87] and Howard Martin Temin jointly discovered that the Rous sarcoma virus particle contained the enzyme reverse transcriptase, and Mizutani was solely responsible for the original conception and design of the novel experiment that confirmed Temin's provirus hypothesis.^[88] However, Mizutani was not awarded the 1975 medicine prize along with Temin.

As of 2015, there have been seven Japanese who have received the Lasker Award and twelve Japanese who have received the Canada Gairdner International Award, but only three Japanese who have received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.

Others

A number of important Japanese native scientists were not nominated for early Nobel Prizes, such as Yasuhiko Kojima and Yasuichi Nagano (jointly discovered Interferon), Jōkichi Takamine (first isolated epinephrine),^[89] Kiyoshi Shiga (discovered Shigella dysenteriae), Tomisaku Kawasaki (Kawasaki disease is named after him), and Hakaru Hashimoto. After World War II, Reiji Okazaki and his wife Tsuneko were known for describing the role of Okazaki fragments, but he died of leukemia (sequelae of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima) in 1975 at the age of 44.

Masahiko Aoki, seen as the most likely candidate to become the first Japanese to win the Nobel Prize for economics, for developing the Institutional Comparative Analysis, he taught at Kyoto University and Stanford University. He died in Palo Alto, California, in July, 2015. He was 77.

See also

• List of Japanese people
• List of Nobel laureates
• List of Asian Nobel laureates
• List of Nobel laureates affiliated with the University of Tokyo
• List of Nobel laureates affiliated with Kyoto University
• List of Nobel laureates by country

Notes

1. Nobel laureates of Japanese birth and origin but subsequently acquired foreign citizenship. Excluding Yuan T. Lee, who was born in Japanese Taiwan, has no Japanese ancestry, and did not have Japanese nationality when he won the Nobel Prize in 1986.
2. The 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry winner Charles J. Pedersen has a Japanese mother and his Japanese first name was Yoshio (良男). Born in Busan, Korea, Japanese protectorate, he moved to Japan with his family at the age of 8 years to attend a convent school in Nagasaki. When he was 10 years old, he moved to Yokohama and entered an international school, called Saint Joseph College in Yamate, Naka-ku.
3. Other nominators include: Bruno Rossi (1905–1993), John C. Slater (1900–1976), Victor Weisskopf (1908–2002), Jerrold R. Zacharias (1905–1986), Philip M. Morse (1903–1985), Albert G. Hill (1910–1996), Jacques Hadamard (1865–1963) and Peter Kruger (?).
4. The group includes Sahachiro Hata (1873–1938) who nominated G. Kato in 1928.