Shigetada Nakanishi

Shigetada Nakanishi (born January 7, 1942 ) is a Japanese biochemist and neuroscientist. Both a medical doctor and biomedical researcher by training, Nakanishi is the director of the Osaka Bioscience Institute and professor emeritus at Kyoto University. He has received several scientific awards for his research in neuroscience, having characterized the molecular structure or function of several protein receptors.

He is a foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences and a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in the U.S.

Early life Nakanishi grew up in Ōgaki in rural central Japan. He earned a medical degree at Kyoto University and, though his family hoped that he would enter medical practice, he continued his studies for a Ph.D. and opted for a research career. Nakanishi said that he considered clinical medicine, but he was swayed toward research as he realized that many modern medical conditions were still not well understood from a basic science perspective. Using electrophysiology and the Xenopus oocyte expression system, Nakanishi's team was able to isolate receptors and ion channels. The team was the first to characterize the molecular structure of NMDA receptors and metabotropic glutamate receptors. The research suggested that specific types of receptors had varying functions in different parts of the brain.

Honors and awards Nakanishi won the Asahi Prize in 1983. He was named a foreign honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1995. The next year, he received the Keio Medical Science Prize. He chairs the executive committee of the Kyoto Prize.