{"id":"tasuku-honjo","type":"person","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/tasuku-honjo","language":"en","name":"Tasuku Honjo","name_en":"Tasuku Honjo","name_ne":null,"description":"Japanese professor of immunology and genomic medicine (1942–)","headline":"Japanese professor of immunology and genomic medicine (1942–)","also_known_as":[],"summary":"Tasuku Honjo (本庶 佑, Honjo Tasuku; born January 27, 1942) is a Japanese physician-scientist and immunologist. He won the 2018 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine and is  best known for his identification of programmed cell death protein 1 (PD-1). He is also known for his molecular identification of cytokines IL-4 and IL-5, as well as the discovery of activation-induced cytidine deaminase (AID) that is essential for class switch recombination and somatic hypermutation.","summary_more":["He was elected as an international member of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States in 2001, a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2003, and as a member of the Japan Academy in 2005. In 2018, he was awarded a Nobel Prize  with James P. Allison. He and Allison together had won the 2014 Tang Prize in Biopharmaceutical Science for the same achievement."],"facts":[{"key":"born","label":"Born","values":[{"text":"27 January 1942","date":"1942-01-27"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P569"}},{"key":"birthplace","label":"Place of birth","values":[{"text":"Kyoto","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q34600"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P19"}},{"key":"citizenship","label":"Citizenship","values":[{"text":"Japan","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q17"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P27"}},{"key":"occupation","label":"Occupation","values":[{"text":"immunologist","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q12119633"},{"text":"biochemist","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2919046"},{"text":"university teacher","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1622272"},{"text":"physician","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q39631"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P106"}},{"key":"education","label":"Education","values":[{"text":"Kyoto University","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q336264"},{"text":"Yamaguchi Prefectural Ube High School","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q11467055"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P69"}},{"key":"awards","label":"Awards","values":[{"text":"Tang Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q10922924","date":"2014"},{"text":"Asahi Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q720434","date":"1981"},{"text":"Imperial Prize of Japan Academy","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q4389487","date":"1996-06-10"},{"text":"Person of Cultural Merit","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2545449","date":"2000"},{"text":"Robert Koch Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q505132","date":"2012"},{"text":"Order of Culture","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q530124","date":"2013"},{"text":"William B. Coley Award","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q918979","date":"2014"},{"text":"Keio Medical Science Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1324940","date":"2016"},{"text":"Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18344281","date":"2016"},{"text":"Clarivate Citation Laureates","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7795894","date":"2016"},{"text":"Warren Alpert Foundation Prize","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q7970020","date":"2017"},{"text":"Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q80061","date":"2018"},{"text":"honorary doctor of the Aix-Marseille University","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q63949553","date":"2021"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P166"}},{"key":"x","label":"X (Twitter)","values":[{"text":"HonjoTasuku","url":"https://x.com/HonjoTasuku"}],"source":{"label":"Wikidata","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341#P2002"}}],"office":null,"sections":[],"cited":[],"cited_from":null,"videos":[],"last_reviewed":null,"organizations":[],"same_as":["https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasuku_Honjo","https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341","https://x.com/HonjoTasuku"],"faq":[{"q":"When was Tasuku Honjo born?","a":"Tasuku Honjo was born on 27 January 1942 in Kyoto."},{"q":"Where did Tasuku Honjo study?","a":"Tasuku Honjo was educated at Kyoto University, Yamaguchi Prefectural Ube High School."}],"related":[{"name":"Akira Suzuki","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/akira-suzuki"},{"name":"Akira Yoshino","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/akira-yoshino"},{"name":"Hideki Shirakawa","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/hideki-shirakawa"},{"name":"Hideki Yukawa","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/hideki-yukawa"},{"name":"Hiroshi Amano","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/hiroshi-amano"},{"name":"Isamu Akasaki","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/isamu-akasaki"},{"name":"Kenichi Fukui","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/kenichi-fukui"},{"name":"Kensō Soai","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/kenso-soai"},{"name":"Koichi Tanaka","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/koichi-tanaka"},{"name":"Leo Esaki","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/leo-esaki"},{"name":"Makoto Kobayashi","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/makoto-kobayashi"},{"name":"Masatoshi Koshiba","url":"https://diginpl.com/people/masatoshi-koshiba"}],"places_in":[],"nearby":[],"image":{"url":"https://diginpl.com/kb-img/tasuku-honjo-8241390dd4.jpg","width":500,"height":752,"license":"CC BY 4.0","credit":"大臣官房人事課","page":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tasuku_Honjo_201311.jpg"},"sources":[{"label":"Wikipedia (English): Tasuku Honjo","url":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tasuku_Honjo","license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/"},{"label":"Wikidata item Q2395341","url":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2395341","license":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"},{"label":"Image: Tasuku Honjo 201311.jpg by 大臣官房人事課 (CC BY 4.0)","url":"https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Tasuku_Honjo_201311.jpg","license":null}],"license":{"text":"CC BY-SA 4.0","url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/","facts":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"},"attribution":"Text from the Wikipedia article Tasuku Honjo, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page's text is shared under the same licence. Facts from Wikidata (CC0). Image: Tasuku Honjo 201311.jpg — 大臣官房人事課, CC BY 4.0.","cite":"\"Tasuku Honjo\". DigiNepal. Last updated 31 October 2026. https://diginpl.com/people/tasuku-honjo. Retrieved 14 November 2026.","date_modified":"2026-10-31T12:00:53Z","facts_checked":"2026-11-14","alternates":{"html":"https://diginpl.com/people/tasuku-honjo","en":"https://diginpl.com/people/tasuku-honjo","ne":"https://diginpl.com/people/tasuku-honjo?lang=ne"}}