# Nakanishi Prize

The Nakanishi Prize, named after Japanese chemist Koji Nakanishi, is an award in chemistry given alternately by the Chemical Society of Japan and the American Chemical Society.

## Purpose

"To recognize and stimulate significant work that extends chemical and spectroscopic methods to the study of important biological phenomena."

## History

In 1995, friends and colleagues of Nakanishi established the Nakanishi Prize. It was decided that the Chemical Society of Japan and the American Chemical Society would alternate years awarding the prize. There are two separate endowments for the prize for each society, but the prize is the same for both awards: a medallion in presentation box, $5,000 prize money, and $2,500 travel reimbursements.

## Recipients

Source: American Chemical Society
| Year | Recipient | Institution | Rationale | Awarded by |
| 1996 | Yoshimasa Hirata | Nagoya University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 1997 | Frank H. Westheimer | Harvard University | | American Chemical Society |
| 1998 | Albert J. Eschenmoser | ETH Zurich | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 1999 | Jeremy R. Knowles | Harvard University | | American Chemical Society |
| 2000 | Satoshi Ōmura | Kitasato University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2001 | John D. Roberts | California Institute of Technology | | American Chemical Society |
| 2002 | Sir Jack Baldwin | University of Oxford | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2003 | A. Ian Scott | Texas A&M University | | American Chemical Society |
| 2004 | Isao Kitagawa | Kyoritsu College of Pharmacy Osaka University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2005 | Stephen J. Benkovic | Pennsylvania State University | | American Chemical Society |
| 2006 | Takeshi Yasumoto | Tohoku University Okinawa Science and Technology Promotion Center | For his "contribution to the chemistry of seafood poisonings and analytical study on dynamism of the causative toxic molecules among marine ecology" | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2007 | Hung-wen Liu | University of Texas at Austin | | American Chemical Society |
| 2008 | Michel Rohmer | Louis Pasteur University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2009 | JoAnne Stubbe | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | For identifying the role of radical intermediates in ribonucleotide reductase functions | American Chemical Society |
| 2010 | Shosuke Yamamura | Keio University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2011 | C. Dale Poulter | University of Utah | | American Chemical Society |
| 2012 | Daisuke Uemura | Kanagawa University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2013 | Arthur G. Palmer III | Columbia University | | American Chemical Society |
| 2014 | Jerrold Meinwald | Cornell University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2015 | Fred W. McLafferty | Cornell University | For developing “top-down proteomics” for characterizing a protein's sequence and modifications | American Chemical Society |
| 2016 | Shoichi Kusumoto | | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2017 | Martin Gruebele | | | American Chemical Society |
| 2018 | Nobuyuki Harada | Tohoku University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2019 | Lewis E. Kay | University of Toronto | | American Chemical Society |
| 2020 | Yoshito Kishi | Harvard University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2021 | Mei Hong | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | | American Chemical Society |
| 2022 | Takenori Kusumi | Tokushima University | | Chemical Society of Japan |
| 2023 | Gilad Haran | Weizmann Institute of Science | | American Chemical Society |