Tomoko Ohta

Tomoko Ohta
Born September 7, 1933
Miyoshi, Japan
Nationality Japanese
Fields Evolutionary Biology
Genetics
Institutions National Institute of Genetics
North Carolina State University
Kihara Institute for Biological Research
Alma mater North Carolina State University
University of Tokyo
Academic advisors Motoo Kimura
Hitoshi Kihara
Known for development of neutral theory of molecular evolution, and nearly neutral theory
Notable awards Crafoord Prize (2015)
Japan Academy Prize (1995)

Tomoko Ohta (太田 朋子 Ōta Tomoko, born September 7, 1933, Miyoshi, Aichi) is a Japanese scientist working on population genetics/molecular evolution. She and Richard Lewontin were jointly awarded the Crafoord Prize for 2015 "for their pioneering analyses and fundamental contributions to the understanding of genetic polymorphism".

Life

Ohta graduated from the Agriculture Department of the University of Tokyo in 1956. She worked at an editorial publishing company before she was hired at the Kihara Institute for Biological Research. There, her work focused on the cytogenetics of wheat and sugar beet. In 1962 an opportunity provided by Hitoshi Kihara to study abroad in the U.S. became available. While a graduate student at the Graduate School of North Carolina State University, she switched her graduate study focus from plant cytogenetics to population genetics with the help of her advisor, Ken-Ichi Kojima, whom she eventually became a student of. She assisted Kojima in working on problems in stochastic population genetics. She obtained her Ph.D. from North Carolina State University in 1966. Because she had studied abroad as a Fulbright student, she was only able to stay in the United States to finish her PhD.

Returning to Japan, Ohta worked under Motoo Kimura, whom was the only theoretical population geneticist in Japan at the time.[1] After working on the neutral theory of evolution with her mentor Kimura, she became convinced that nearly neutral mutations (neither deleterious nor entirely neutral) played an important role in evolution.[2] She developed the slightly deleterious model (Ohta, 1973), then a more general form, the nearly neutral theory of evolution.[3] She worked at the Japanese National Institute of Genetics from 1969 to 1996,[4] and, in 2002, she was elected to the United States National Academy of Sciences as a foreign associate in evolutionary biology.

Reactions to Ohta's Nearly Neutral Theory

When Ohta first published her Nearly Neutral theory, she faced difficulty in attracting the scientific research community's attention. Many researchers at the time strongly supported the natural selection theory.[2] Supporting data in protein evolution was sequentially collected in the 1990s, with even more evidence supporting her theory made available throughout the 21st century.[1]

Recognition

List of books available in English

References

  1. 1 2 Ohta, Tomoko, Tomoko Ohta, 22 (16), pp. R618–R619, doi:10.1016/j.cub.2012.06.031
  2. 1 2 "National Institute of Genetics: OHTA, Tomoko - Professor Emeritus". NIG. Retrieved 20 April 2016.
  3. ↑ Steen, TY. 2008 "The Case of Ohta Tomoko: A Woman Geneticist in the Neutralist-Selectionist Evolution Controversy." Historia Scientiarum, volume 18(2), pages, 172–184.
  4. ↑ "National Institute of Genetics Feature: Our Leaders in Genetics". NIG. Retrieved 5 July 2011.
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