Group Director Yoshiki Sasai wins pair of science prizes

Oct 1, 2012 –The RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology is pleased to announce that Yoshiki Sasai, Group Director of the Laboratory for Organogenesis and Neurogenesis has been named winner of the 12th Yamazaki-Teiichi Prize and the 2012 Takeda Medical Prize in recognition of his work in the self-organization of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into various tissue types.

Group Director Yoshiki Sasai

The Yamazaki-Teiichi Prize was awarded in the category of Biological Science and Technology for Sasai’s work in the generation of self-organized, three-dimensional brain and sensory tissues from embryonic stem cells, while the Takeda Medical Prize was given to recognize his work in developing a mechanistic understanding and in vitro recapitulation of organogenesis.

“I am delighted that tissues derived from embryonic stem cells have been recognized for their value as a unique resource, and our group will continue working to develop even more complex structures from these pluripotent cells,” says Sasai. “I was also extremely happy and honored to see the acknowledgment of the value of basic scientific research to medicine that these prizes represent. Organogenesis remains a mysterious process, and we still have much to learn, and I look forward to continuing to explore these phenomena in greater detail.”