Tanaka, Koichi (1959– )

Japanese engineer who was awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize for Chemistry (with US analytical chemist John B Fenn and Swiss structural biologist Kurt Wüthrich) for his role in the development of soft desorption methods for mass spectrometric analysis of biological macromolecules.

Tanaka developed Matrix Assisted Laser Desorption Ionisation (MALDI), which enables biological macromolecules, especially proteins, to be analysed using mass spectroscopy, one of the most widespread of analytical techniques. The technique has important applications such as genome research and the development of new pharmaceuticals.

From 1992, Tanaka spent several years on secondment to various corporation subsidiaries developing analytical techniques before returning to Kyoto, Japan, working at the Analytical and Measuring Division of the Shimadzu Corporation.