Setsuro Ebashi

Professor of Pharmacology and Biophysics, University of Tokyo. Professor and Director, National Institute for Physiological Sciences. President, Okazaki National Research Institutes. Research centers on physiology, biochemistry and pharmacology of muscles. He found that relaxing factor of muscle is sarcoplasmic reticulum that deprives Ca(2+) of cytoplasm. Pursuing the molecular mechanism of muscle contraction, he also found troponin, the protein that makes contraction Ca(2+)-dependent. His investigation further into this system established the present view on the molecular mechanism of muscle contraction. Besides, he found that creatine kinase in serum was markedly elevated in the serum of muscular dystrophy patients; this finding has been widely utilized as its diagnosis. He still continues his researches into the regulator mechanism of smooth muscle.