Susumu Tonegawa is a Japanese scientist who won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine in 1987 for his discovery of the genetic mechanism that produces antibody diversity. Although he won the Nobel Prize for his work in immunology, Tonegawa is a molecular biologist by training. In his later years, he has turned his attention to the molecular and cellular basis of memory formation. Tonegawa is best known for figuring out the genetic mechanism of the adaptive immune system. One early idea was that each gene produces one protein. There are under 19,000 genes in the human body. However, the human body can produce millions of antibodies. Tonegawa showed in experiments beginning in 1976, genetic material rearranges itself to form millions of antibodies. Comparing the DNA of B cells in embryonic and adult mice, he observed that genes in the mature B cells of the adult mice are moved around, recombined, and deleted to form the diversity of the variable region of antibodies. Tonegawa was born in Nagoya, Japan and attended the Hibiya High School in Tokyo. He received his bachelor's degree from Kyoto University in 1963. 

September 6th, 1939 in Nagoya (Age 84)