List of Japanese Nobel laureates
Laureates
Japanese citizens The following are the Nobel laureates who were Japanese citizens at the time they were awarded the Nobel Prize.

List of Japanese Nobel laureates

Section Title: Laureates
Table Section Text: Japanese citizens The following are the Nobel laureates who were Japanese citizens at the time they were awarded the Nobel Prize.

Year	Laureate	Category	Life	Rationale

1949	-	Hideki Yukawa	Physics	1907–1981	"for his prediction of the existence of mesons on the basis of theoretical work on nuclear forces".

1965	-	Sin-Itiro Tomonaga	Physics	1906–1979	"for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles" – shared with Julian Schwinger and Richard Feynman.

1968	-	Yasunari Kawabata	Literature	1899–1972	"for his narrative mastery, which with great sensibility expresses the essence of the Japanese mind".

1973	-	Leo Esaki	Physics	1925–	"for their experimental discoveries regarding tunneling phenomena in semiconductors and superconductors, respectively" – shared with Ivar Giaever and Brian David Josephson.

1974	-	Eisaku Satō	Peace	1901–1975	"Prime Minister of Japan," "for his renunciation of the nuclear option for Japan and his efforts to further regional reconciliation" – Shared with Seán MacBride.

1981	-	Kenichi Fukui	Chemistry	1918–1998	"for their theories, developed independently, concerning the course of chemical reactions" – shared with Roald Hoffmann.

1987	-	Susumu Tonegawa	Physiology or Medicine	1939–	"for his discovery of the genetic principle for generation of antibody diversity."

1994	-	Kenzaburō Ōe	Literature	1935–	"who with poetic force creates an imagined world, where life and myth condense to form a disconcerting picture of the human predicament today."

2000	-	Hideki Shirakawa	Chemistry	1936–	"for the discovery and development of conductive polymers" – shared with Alan MacDiarmid and Alan Heeger.

2001	-	Ryōji Noyori	Chemistry	1938–	"for their work on chirally catalysed hydrogenation reactions" – shared with William Knowles and Barry Sharpless.

2002	-	Masatoshi Koshiba	Physics	1926–	"for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos" – shared with Raymond Davis, Jr. and Riccardo Giacconi.

-	Koichi Tanaka	Chemistry	1959–	"for the development of methods for identification and structure analyses of biological macromolecules" and "for their development of soft desorption ionisation methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules" – shared with John Fenn and Kurt Wüthrich.

2008	-	Makoto Kobayashi	Physics	1944–	"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature" – shared with Yoichiro Nambu and Toshihide Maskawa.

-	Toshihide Maskawa	Physics	1940–	"for the discovery of the origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three families of quarks in nature" – shared with Yoichiro Nambu and Makoto Kobayashi.

-	Osamu Shimomura	Chemistry	1928–2018	"for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP" – shared with Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien.

2010	-	Ei-ichi Negishi	Chemistry	1935–	"for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis" – shared with Richard F. Heck and Akira Suzuki.

-	Akira Suzuki	Chemistry	1930–	"for palladium-catalyzed cross couplings in organic synthesis" – shared with Richard F. Heck and Ei-ichi Negishi.

2012	-	Shinya Yamanaka	Physiology or Medicine	1962–	"for the discovery that mature cells can be reprogrammed to become pluripotent" – shared with John B. Gurdon.

2014	-	Isamu Akasaki	Physics	1929–	"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources" – shared with Hiroshi Amano and Shuji Nakamura.

-	Hiroshi Amano	Physics	1960–	"for the invention of efficient blue light-emitting diodes which has enabled bright and energy-saving white light sources" – shared with Isamu Akasaki and Shuji Nakamura.

2015	-	Satoshi Ōmura	Physiology or Medicine	1935–	"for their discoveries concerning a novel therapy against infections caused by roundworm parasites" – shared with William C. Campbell and Tu Youyou.

-	Takaaki Kajita	Physics	1959–	"for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass" – shared with Arthur B. McDonald.

2016	-	Yoshinori Ohsumi	Physiology or Medicine	1945-	"for his discoveries of mechanisms for autophagy"

2018	-	Tasuku Honjo	Physiology or Medicine	1942-	"for their discovery of cancer therapy by inhibition of negative immune regulation" – shared with James P. Allison.

Sentence(s)

Esaki is one of the Japanese Nobel laureate.

final_sentence: Esaki is one of the Japanese Nobel laureate.