This year, no Japanese person won a Nobel Prize in the natural sciences. If a Japanese had been a laureate in the categories, it would have been the third year in a row for Japan to win such an award. Basic research takes time to produce results. It is important to provide long-term support.
The winners of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry were two women from the United States and France who developed a gene-editing technique known as CRISPR/Cas9. It is an epoch-making technique for freely cutting and pasting DNA, which is called the blueprint of life. The two had been seen as favorites for the award.
They developed the technique in 2012. It sometimes takes several decades to win a Nobel Prize, so their award this time was unusually rapid. However, considering the impact this technique has had on medicine and life science, this can likely be deemed a natural accolade.
Their development is based on studies conducted by Japanese scientists more than 30 years ago. Researchers, including Kyushu University Prof. Yoshizumi Ishino, discovered an unusual repeating sequence in the process of decoding E. coli genes. In later years, this was found to be related to the bacterial immune system and was named CRISPR.
The purpose of applied research is to achieve the desired results and connect them to practical use. However, basic research that is not initially known to be useful sometimes pays off greatly. The discovery by Ishino and other scientists is a good example of basic research with unforeseen potential.
It is important for the government, companies and universities to support basic research from a long-term perspective, rather than prioritizing only short-term profits.
This year's Nobel Prize in Physics was related to black holes. Last year, a team from an observation station of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan in Oshu, Iwate Prefecture, played a prominent role in a separate international project that succeeded in taking the world's first photograph of a black hole.
Since then, however, the budget for the observation station in Oshu has been drastically cut, and observation activities there are said to be in a precarious position.
In recent years, a series of Japanese Nobel laureates have pointed out the deteriorating environment for research. This is because the government's subsidies for operating expenses at national universities have been cut due to fiscal difficulties. The number of young researchers with unstable positions is also increasing.
To date, 24 researchers from Japan -- including Yoichiro Nanbu, who obtained U.S. citizenship -- have won prizes in the three natural science categories, which include the physiology or medicine award. Since 2000, there has been a rush of 19 Japanese researchers winning awards.
These achievements are simply a case of results accumulated in the past being rewarded now. At present, the number and quality of Japanese research papers has significantly declined compared with those in the United States and China. If nothing is done to address the current situation, many fear there will be no Japanese Nobel laureates 10 or 20 years from now.
Creative, original research that could lead to Nobel Prizes needs an environment in which young researchers and female scientists can work on their studies freely and without worry. The government should devise a strategy to sow many seeds for the future.
-- The original Japanese article appeared in The Yomiuri Shimbun on Oct. 13, 2020.
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