As per our current Database, Susumu Tonegawa is still alive (as per Wikipedia, Last update: May 10, 2020).
Currently, Susumu Tonegawa is 85 years, 3 months and 17 days old. Susumu Tonegawa will celebrate 86rd birthday on a Friday 5th of September 2025. Below we countdown to Susumu Tonegawa upcoming birthday.
| Popular As | Susumu Tonegawa |
| Occupation | Scientists |
| Age | 83 years old |
| Zodiac Sign | Libra |
| Born | September 05, 1939 (Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, Japanese) |
| Birthday | September 05 |
| Town/City | Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, Japanese |
| Nationality | Japanese |
Susumu Tonegawa’s zodiac sign is Libra. According to astrologers, People born under the sign of Libra are peaceful, fair, and they hate being alone. Partnership is very important for them, as their mirror and someone giving them the ability to be the mirror themselves. These individuals are fascinated by balance and symmetry, they are in a constant chase for justice and equality, realizing through life that the only thing that should be truly important to themselves in their own inner core of personality. This is someone ready to do nearly anything to avoid conflict, keeping the peace whenever possible
Susumu Tonegawa was born in the Year of the Rabbit. Those born under the Chinese Zodiac sign of the Rabbit enjoy being surrounded by family and friends. They’re popular, compassionate, sincere, and they like to avoid conflict and are sometimes seen as pushovers. Rabbits enjoy home and entertaining at home. Compatible with Goat or Pig.
Tonegawa was born in Nagoya, Japan and attended Hibiya High School in Tokyo. While a student at Kyoto University, Tonegawa became fascinated with operon theory after reading papers by François Jacob and Jacques Monod, whom he credits in part for inspiring his interest in molecular biology. Tonegawa graduated from Kyoto University in 1963 and, due to limited options for molecular biology study in Japan at the time, moved to the University of California, San Diego to do his doctorate study under Dr. Masaki Hayashi. He received his Ph.D. in 1968.
Tonegawa conducted post-doctoral work at the Salk Institute in San Diego in the laboratory of Renato Dulbecco. With encouragement from Dr. Dulbecco, Tonegawa moved to the Basel Institute for Immunology in Basel, Switzerland in 1971, where he transitioned from molecular biology into immunology studies and carried out his landmark immunology studies.
In 1981, Tonegawa became a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1994, he was appointed as the first Director of the MIT Center for Learning and Memory, which developed under his guidance into The Picower Institute for Learning and Memory. Tonegawa resigned his directorship in 2006 and currently serves as a Picower Professor of Neuroscience and Biology and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator.
Shortly following his Nobel Prize in 1990, Tonegawa again changed fields from immunology to neuroscience, where he has focused his research in the ensuing years.
Tonegawa is a fan of the Boston Red Sox, and threw out an opening pitch during their 2004 World Series championship season.
Tonegawa also served as Director of the RIKEN Brain Science Institute from 2009 to 2017.
Tonegawa was an early adopter of optogenetics and biotechnology in neuroscience research, leading to his groundbreaking work identifying and manipulating memory engram cells. In 2012, his lab demonstrated that the activation of a specific sub-population of mouse hippocampal neurons, labelled during a fear conditioning paradigm, is sufficient to evoke a behavioral response correlated with a precise memory trace. This confirmed for the first time that memory information is stored in specific cellular ensembles in the hippocampus, now frequently called memory engram cells.
More recently, his lab continues to employ optogenetic Technology and virus injection techniques to expand their findings on the engram cell ensemble. Notably, Tonegawa has uncovered the role of memory engram cell ensembles in memory valence, as well as their role in brain disorders such as depression, amnesia, and Alzheimer’s disease. These works provide proofs of concept for Future medical treatments in humans through the manipulation of memory engram ensembles.
