Susumu Ohno

For the linguist, seeSusumu Ōno.

Susumu Ohno
Born	Đại dã càn, Ōno Susumu (1928-02-01)1 February 1928 Keijō,Keiki-dō,Korea, Empire of Japan (nowSeoul,South Korea)
Died	13 January 2000(2000-01-13)(aged 71)
Citizenship	Japanese and American
Education	Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology,Hokkaido University(Ph.D., D.Sc.)
Known for	Role of gene duplication in evolution
Spouse	Midori Aoyama (musician)
Children	Two sons, one daughter
Scientific career
Fields	genetics, evolution
Institutions	City of Hope Medical Center

Susumu Ohno(Đại dã càn,Ōno Susumu,February 1, 1928 – January 13, 2000)was a Japanese-Americangeneticistandevolutionary biologist,and seminal researcher in the field ofmolecular evolution.

Biography

Susumu Ohno was born to Japanese parents inKeijō,Chōsen(present-daySeoul,South Korea),Empire of Japanon February 1, 1928. The second of five children, he was the son of the minister of education of theJapanese Protectorate of Korea.The family returned to mainland Japan after the war in 1945. He later became a citizen of theUnited States.Susumu Ohno married musician Midori Aoyama in 1951. They had two sons and one daughter.

His passion for science derived from his lifelong love of horses. He earned a Ph.D. in veterinary science atTokyo University of Agriculture and Technologyin 1949, and later a Ph.D. and D.Sc. from Hokkaido University. He went to the United States in 1951, as a visiting scholar to UCLA, and in 1952 joined the new research department atCity of Hope Medical Center,where he remained in active research until 1996.

Scientific contributions

Ohno postulated thatgene duplicationplays a major role in evolution in his classic bookEvolution by Gene Duplication(1970).While subsequent research has overwhelmingly confirmed the key role of gene duplication inmolecular evolution,research to evaluate Ohno's model for the preservation of duplicate genes (now termedneofunctionalization) is ongoing and very active. He also discovered in 1956 that theBarr bodyof mammalian female nuclei was in fact a condensed X chromosome.InEvolution by Gene Duplication,he also suggested thatvertebrategenome is the result of one or more entiregenome duplications;variations of this idea have come to be known as the2R hypothesis(also called "Ohno's hypothesis" ). He indicated that mammalian X chromosomes are conserved among species;it has been referred to asOhno's law.He also popularized the termjunk DNAfor segments of theDNAthat have no known function.

In 1986, Ohno authored a paper published inImmunogeneticsthat explored the relationship between DNA genetic sequences and music. "The SARC oncogene, a malignant gene first discovered in chickens, causes cancer in humans as well. When Ohno translated the gene to music, it sounded very much like Chopin`s Funeral March". "An enzyme (phosphoglyceratekinase), which breaks down sugar (glucose) in the body revealed itself to Ohno as a lullaby. ``A violinist recorded the tune, and when kindergarten teachers in Tokyo play it, their youngsters yawn and willingly take their naps,``" said Ohno. The biologist, with no formal training in music, "decided to assign notes according to the molecular weights" and "put the heavier molecules in lower positions, and the lighter molecules higher". With DNA being composed of four subunits, he mapped each to two positions on the musics staff, forming an octave. He found that the more evolved an organism is, the more complicated is the music. His ultimate hope was "to find is some basic pattern that governs all life...everything."

See also

• Gene duplication
• Paleopolyploidy

External links

• Ernest Beutler, "Susumu Ohno", Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences (2002)
• Biography by Ulrich Wolf
• Music Based on part of a Immunoglobulin Gene