The Asahi Prize 2017 to be Awarded to Professor Masashi Yanagisawa

Winners of the Asahi Prize 2017, presented by The Asahi Shimbun Foundation, have been announced. The winners included Professor Masashi Yanagisawa of the University of Tsukuba (Director of the International Institute for Integrative Sleep Medicine (IIIS)).

The Asahi Prize was established in 1929 to honor individuals and groups that have made outstanding accomplishments in the fields of academics and arts, and have greatly contributed to the development and progress of Japanese culture and society at large. (Referred to The Asahi Prize webpage.

Professor Yanagisawa has been selected as a recipient in recognition of his "discovery of orexin and study of sleep/wake regulation".)
The award ceremony will be held in Tokyo on January 31.

Comment from Professor Yanagisawa
My understanding is that I was chosen as a recipient because our long-term research, which started with the discovery of orexin and its involvement in sleep/wake regulation, received recognition. In addition, I believe that they see bright prospects in our recent research such as the forward genetics of sleep in mice. I would like to continue my efforts to solve the mystery of sleep and live up to their expectations. Given that the award selection committee members were from other academic fields than life science, I feel especially grateful that our research got recognition from people in a variety of fields.