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Yousuke Seyama

Yousuke Seyama was born in 1941, and started his research career in 1966 as a graduate student in the laboratory of Professor Tamio Yamakawa at Faculty of Medicine, the University of Tokyo. He worked two years from 1969 to 1971 as a research associate at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in the laboratory of Professor Herman Kalckar, studying the reaction mechanism of UDP-galactose 4-epimerase. In 1973, he received PhD degree from the University of Tokyo.

He was appointed Associate at Faculty of Medicine, the University of Tokyo in 1972, Associate Professor in 1979, and Professor in 1983. In 2001 he was promoted to Professor at Ochanomizu University, Faculty of Human Life and Environmental Sciences. After retirement from Ochanomizu University in 2006, he moved to National Institution for Academic Degrees and University Evaluation (NIAD-UE), as Visiting Professor. In 2008 he was invited to Sugiyama Jogakuen University in Nagoya as Professor at Faculty of Human Life Studies, and retired in 2011. He was appointed as the President of Japan Medical Abstract Society (JAMAS) in 2010 and it continues up to today.

His research has been focused on lipid biochemistry, especially on genetic disease named cerebrotendinous xanthomatosis (CTX), Harderian gland lipid, bioactive lipids like leukotriene, PAF receptor, and also on glycolipids. He clarified the regulation mechanism of fatty acid synthesis using deuterium labeled substrates followed by mass spectrometric analysis. In regard to CTX, he developed novel methods to quantify cholestanol concentration in plasma, to analyze defective enzyme, and finally he determined the mutations in several families.

Toward these establishments, he was awarded Prize for Young Biochemists from Japanese Biochemical Society in 1978, Inoue Science Prize from Inoue Science Foundation in 1988, Academic Award from Japan Society of Nutrition and Food Science in 1998, and Award from Japanese Society for Biomedical Mass Spectrometry in 2004.

He has served as Vice President of Japanese Biochemical Society from 1995 to 1996 and from 1999 to 2000, President of Japanese Society of Nutrition and Food Science from 2000 to 2002, President of Japanese Conference on the Biochemistry of Lipids (JCBL) from 1999 to 2004, ordinary and corresponding member of the Steering Committee of International Conferences on the Biochemistry of Lipids (ICBL) from 1989 to 2005. He is an honorary member of Japanese Biochemical Society, Japan Society of Nutrition and Food Science, and Japanese Conference on the Biochemistry of Lipids (ICBL). He served as Editorial Board of Journal of Biochemistry (JB), and of Japanese Journal of Nutrition and Food Science.

Cited from the article
Novel function of lipids as a pheromone from the Harderian gland of golden hamster
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