2026.09.25

Director Masashi Yanagisawa Gives Lasker Award Commemorative Lecture at The Nippon Club, New York

Dr. Masashi Yanagisawa, Director of WPI-IIIS, University of Tsukuba, recipient of the 2026 Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award, gave a commemorative lecture at The Nippon Club in Midtown Manhattan, New York, on the evening of Thursday, September 17, 2026, the day of the award ceremony. Dr. Yanagisawa shares the award with Dr. Emmanuel Mignot of Stanford University School of Medicine for the identification of orexin, a brain peptide that maintains wakefulness, and the discovery that orexin deficiency causes narcolepsy.



The lecture was attended by President Kyosuke Nagata, Prof. Hiromi Yanagisawa, Prof. Takeshi Sakurai (Vice Director of WPI-IIIS), and Visiting Prof. Hiromasa Funato, who had also attended the award ceremony. Ambassador Satoshi Katahira, Consul General of Japan in New York, joined the event and delivered congratulatory remarks. Ten University of Tsukuba alumni working in the United States and many reporters from Japanese media outlets based in the U.S. were also present.



The alumni in attendance, who graduated between 1986 and 2017, spanned a wide range of generations, and the event also offered Tsukuba graduates in New York a new opportunity to connect with one another.



The lecture was made possible through a University of Tsukuba alumnus who is a member of The Nippon Club. We extend our sincere gratitude to everyone at The Nippon Club for their cooperation.

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