Tamio Yamakawa: Dawn of glycobiology.

Tamio Yamakawa isolated a glycosphingolipid from horse erythrocyte membrane, named it hematoside, and reported the results in Journal of Biochemistry. This was the first paper to report that glycosphingolipids are located in the cell membrane. He also isolated a glycosphingolipid, globoside, from human erythrocytes and demonstrated for the first time that ABO blood group antigens are glycosphingolipids in the erythrocytes. He reported the correct chemical structure of sulfatide, and found seminolipid, which is unexpectedly a glyceroglycolipid, as the major glycolipid of mammalian testis and spermatozoa. He started and developed the research of glycolipid biochemistry and established the basis for the further development of glycobiology. He published most of his original work in Journal of Biochemistry and made great efforts to improve review process of the journal as an editor-in-chief.