Contact: Diana Kenney
508-685-3525; dkenney@mbl.edu

Osamu Shimomura holds a test tube containing green fluorescent protein (GFP) in a water solution. He also holds a lamp that shines ultraviolet light, which causes the GFP to fluoresce bright green. Shimomura purified this small amount of GFP from 20,000 Aequorea specimens. Credit: Tom Kleindinst

WOODS HOLE, Mass.—With great sadness, the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) notes the passing of Osamu Shimomura, Ph.D., who died on Oct. 19, 2018, in Nagasaki, Japan. Shimomura was a Distinguished Scientist Emeritus at MBL, a former member of the MBL Society, and a 2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry. The MBL flag will be lowered in his memory.

A senior scientist at the MBL from 1982 until his retirement in 2001, Shimomura dedicated his career to the study of bioluminescence in many animals, particularly the chemical structure of photoproteins. In 1961-1962 he discovered and isolated green fluorescent protein (GFP) from the jellyfish Aequorea, a molecule that later became a revolutionary tool in light microscopy that allowed scientists to see cellular components and processes that could never be seen before. For his work with GFP, including elucidation of its chromophore in the late 1970s, Shimomura was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2008 with co-recipients Martin Chalfie of Columbia University and Roger Tsien of University of California, San Diego.

“The development of GFP to visualize the inner workings of cells, organs, and entire organisms precipitated a golden age of innovation in microscopy and imaging that continues to unfold,” said Nipam Patel, director of the Marine Biological Laboratory. “The importance of Dr. Shimomura’s contribution to contemporary biological discovery cannot be overstated.”

Osamu Shimomura was born in Fukuchiyama, Kyoto-Fu, Japan, on August 27, 1928. Wartime cut short his high-school education and by tenth grade he and his classmates had been mobilized to work in munitions factories. In 1945, Shimomura was 15 kilomoters from Nagasaki when the atomic bomb fell, a devastating event that left a lifelong impression.

After the war, Shimomura enrolled in Nagasaki College of Pharmacy, graduating in 1951. He then worked as a research student at Nagoya University from 1955 to 1958, under the guidance of Yoshimasa Hirata. During this time, Shimomura succeeded in crystallizing luciferin, the light-emitting substance, from the marine organism Cypridina, which was an extremely difficult isolation to accomplish. Based on this work, Shimomura was awarded a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Nagoya University in 1960.

In 1959, Frank H. Johnson of Princeton University invited Shimomura to work in his laboratory. Shimomura arrived in 1960 and was joined shortly thereafter by his wife and research assistant, Akemi (Okubo) Shimomura. While at Princeton (1960-1982),  Shimomura discovered and isolated GFP, after he and Akemi had hand-collected and hand-processed 10,000 Aequorea jellyfish specimens at Friday Harbor, Puget Sound, Washington. Shimomura also isolated another bioluminescent molecule from Aequorea, aequorin, which was widely used among cell biologists and physiologists in the 1970s and 1980s as a calcium probe.

Four images of the jellyfish Aequorea taken by Osamu Shimomura in 1961 at Friday Harbor, Washington. At top and bottom left, Shimomura photographed these specimens directly in the harbor during sunlight. At bottom right, after transporting a jellyfish to a darkroom, he exposed it to fresh water to trigger bioluminescence. This panel was exhibited as part of The Living Lights display at the 2014 Edinburgh International Science Festival.

“Osamu Shimomura was the first ever to purify one important protein and substance after another that are responsible for bioluminescence (using a vast number of organisms that he personally collected). He selflessly supplied the purified material to scholars around the world. He and his wife, Akemi, kept to the bench for so many years without seeking glory or public recognition,” recalled MBL Distinguished Scientist Shinya Inoué, a longtime colleague and friend of the Shimomuras.

During Shimomura's tenure at the MBL, he was an integral part of the MBL's research activities, presenting scientific reports in the MBL General Scientific Meetings, authoring articles in The Biological Bulletin, the scientific journal long published at MBL, and serving as an expert advisor on the green fluorescent protein. Akemi Shimomura was also a member of the MBL's research staff from 1982 to 2001, working as his research assistant. In 2002, the MBL presented a symposium in honor of Shimomura's achievements, and in 2013, Shimomura presented a talk about his life in science at the MBL in observance of the laboratory’s 125^th anniversary.

Among his many scientific honors, Shimomura was elected to the U.S. National Academy of Sciences in 2013. In 2008 he received the Order of Culture, the highest honor given annually by the Emperor of Japan, at a ceremony at the MBL.  He was the author of numerous scientific publications and two books: Bioluminescence: Chemical Principles and Methods (World Scientific Publishing, 2006, revised 2012) and Luminous Pursuit: Jellyfish, GFP, and the Unforeseen Path to the Nobel Prize (World Scientific, 2017).

Osamu Shimomura is survived by his wife, Akemi, of Falmouth, Massachusetts, his son, Tsutomu, his daughter, Sachi, and two grandchildren.

Links:

Osamu Shimomura’s Autobiography, prepared for the Nobel Foundation

Osamu Shimomura’s Nobel Prize Lecture

MBL Press Release on Shimomura’s Receipt of Nobel Prize (with photo gallery and other resources)

MBL Catalyst article on Osamu Shimomura

Osamu Shimomura's CV

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The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is dedicated to scientific discovery – exploring fundamental biology, understanding marine biodiversity and the environment, and informing the human condition through research and education. Founded in Woods Hole, Massachusetts in 1888, the MBL is a private, nonprofit institution and an affiliate of the University of Chicago.

The Marine Biological Laboratory, a hub for research and education and an affiliate of the University of Chicago, convenes biologists from around the world each year to advance the mission of biological discovery.

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Deadline December 15, 2018We are now accepting applications for Whitman Center Fellowships for 2019. Support is available for scientists to come to the Marine Biological Laboratory for 4 to 10 weeks to conduct independent research.

We particularly encourage applications focused on:

• Evolutionary, genetic, and genomic approaches in regenerative and developmental biology and neuroscience with an emphasis on novel marine organisms.
• Integrated imaging and computational approaches to illuminate cellular function and biology emerging from the study of marine and other organisms.
• Integrated approaches to the study of microbial communities in coastal communities.

 
The 2019 Fellowship program includes Whitman Center Early Career Investigator Fellowships, specifically designated for individuals less than 10 years from their doctoral degree who wish to focus on these areas of biological discovery.

Whitman Center Fellowships cover laboratory rental and housing costs. The Whitman Center offers access to state-of-the-art instrumentation, innovative imaging technology, genome sequencing, availability of model freshwater and marine organisms, and modern laboratory facilities. The Marine Biological Laboratory hosts hundreds of researchers, postdocs, and graduate students from around the world to participate in scientific discovery courses, research, lectures, and field studies. As a convener of biology, the year-round Marine Biological Laboratory is well known for fostering a highly collaborative environment, with scientists and students engaged in intensive research in a collegial and informal atmosphere.

Eligible applicants must hold appointments at accredited universities, colleges or research institutions anywhere in the world. While applications will be evaluated on the basis of scientific merit, we are especially interested in individuals from diverse backgrounds, experiences and perspectives, especially those underrepresented in science.

“I think Bouncer is absolutely amazing,” Andrea Pauli says, referring to a very short but powerful protein her lab discovered that's required for sperm to penetrate an egg during zebrafish fertilization. Not only that, Bouncer blocks entry to the egg by different species of sperm  – hence the gatekeeper-at-a-nightclub name they chose for this potent fertilization factor.

The MBL is now accepting applications for 2019 Whitman Center Fellowships, which support scientists to conduct research for 4 to 10 weeks at MBL. Apply by Dec. 15, 2018. More information is here. Photo: IMP

Bouncer’s discovery was reported in Science on Sept. 7, shortly after Pauli wrapped up her summer research in the MBL Whitman Center and returned to her lab at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology (IMP) in Vienna, Austria, where Bouncer’s function was identified.

“I honestly didn’t believe that this one little protein, Bouncer, would allow the correct species of sperm to enter while keeping the wrong ones out,” Pauli says. “I thought it would be much more likely a combination of different factors. But our results reveal a key role for Bouncer as the gatekeeper of the oocyte (egg).”

This is a significant advance for the field of fertilization research, which has been conducted at the MBL for more than a century. Surprisingly, very few factors have been identified that are essential for egg-sperm recognition or species-specific fertilization since Oscar Hertwig first described fertilization in sea urchins in 1876.

Pauli’s lab has determined that Bouncer sits on the egg's surface in fish while in mammals, curiously, Bouncer’s homolog (SPACA4) sits on the sperm's surface. Whether SPACA4 is required for sperm to enter the egg in mammals is still unclear.

To follow up on the exciting Bouncer discovery and expand other ongoing research areas, Pauli brought four of her lab members to the MBL last summer, where she was a Whitman Fellow, and asked each of them to define and pursue a research project that “would be better to do in Woods Hole than in Vienna,” she says.

Members of the Pauli lab from IMP Vienna in the MBL Whitman Center. From left: Sarah Herberg (first author on the Bouncer Science paper); Andrea Pauli (IMP Group Leader); Jessica Stock (PhD student); Kasia Hammar of MBL; and Friederike Leesch (PhD student). Not pictured: Krista Gert, Pauli lab PhD student who also came to MBL. Credit: Megan Costello

For instance, to glean more clues about Bouncer’s mechanism of action, they took advantage of the many species maintained by the MBL Marine Resources Center and MBL’s strengths in imaging. One idea was to collect eggs and sperm from various fish species to test for their cross-species fertilization ability and to profile their Bouncer sequences – a project that turned out to be much harder than anticipated. They also piloted imaging studies to look at the egg’s surface and at Bouncer dynamics, to ultimately learn how Bouncer mediates sperm-egg interaction.

Pauli also drew upon MBL expertise to find out what can’t be easily done. Prior to Bouncer, Pauli had discovered another short protein (Toddler) that is essential for cell migration during the gastrulation phase of embryonic development.

“In Vienna, we are trying to figure out how Toddler regulates cell migration in zebrafish. So at MBL, we wanted to expand our studies and use live-cell imaging to see how gastrulation happens in several other species,” she says.

“We thought live imaging just hadn’t been done, because reports about cell movement during gastrulation in classical model systems, like the sea urchin, are very scarce in the scientific literature. But when we got to MBL, several people from the fertilization field told us, ‘Oh, yeah. We've been trying to do that for 20 years but because the embryos spin so fast, no one has been able to fix them [for imaging].’ It’s super-hard to do. And that was something we just didn't know!”

The MBL “was ideal, like a playground,” Pauli says, for another project they pursued: collecting eggs, sperm, and body tissue from as many species as possible so they can genetically compare the germline-to-embryo transition across species. “We had a whole box of samples – squid, sea urchins, sea stars, etc. --  to ship back to Vienna,” she says.

But while she was happy with the data they collected, interacting with the scientifically diverse MBL community was of even greater value. “The MBL is a great place to think outside of the box, get new ideas, talk to people about things you would normally never hear about, interact with people you would normally never come across,” Pauli says.

“I learned about so much interesting biology and different animal systems at MBL. I kept saying, ‘Oh wow! I’ve never even heard of this! All these organisms - what could one do here?!’ It’s really cool.”

https://youtu.be/KEuBLPaK7e0
Movie of sperm (in purple) approaching the sperm entry site of a zebrafish egg. Time is shown in mm:ss. Credit: Sarah Herberg/Andrea Pauli/IMP Vienna

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The Pauli lab wishes to acknowledge the collaborative scientific community at MBL that offered help, advice and reagents throughout their stay in the Whitman Center. Special thanks are extended to: Pierre Gönczy (Whitman Fellow, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne), Kasia Hammar (MBL), Carrie Albertin (MBL), Benjamin Kaupp (Whitman Scientist, Research Center Caesar, Bonn), Mark Terasaki (Whitman Scientist, University of Connecticut Health Center), Edgar Gomes (Whitman Fellow, iMM Lisbon), Daniel Gibson (Whitman Scientist, Worcester Polytechnic Institute), Chris Sansam (Whitman Fellow, Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation), Amy Herbert (Grass Fellow, Washington University in St. Louis), Tessa Montague (Grass Fellow, Harvard University), Lisa Abott (MBL), the staff from the MBL Marine Resources Center and Zebrafish Facility, and John Allen (Nikon).

Homepage photo: Andrea Pauli working with zebrafish. Credit: IMP/Lukas Beck