Hiroshi Nikaido, M.D.
Professor of Biochemistry, University of California Berkeley

Dr. Nikaido has studied, throughout his scientific career, the structure, function and biosynthesis of macromolecules that comprise the surface of the bacterial cell. His studies have dealt mainly with the outer membrane, an additional membrane layer that is found in Gram-negative bacteria. His pioneering work demonstrated that the outer membrane acts as a selective permeability barrier, making some of these organisms much more resistant to antibiotic treatment. Most lines of current academic and industrial research on the outer membrane can be said to have originated in Dr. Nikaido's laboratory. These include: the studies of channel-forming proteins (which he named "porins"); studies of numerous specific transport channels; and the unusual barrier properties of the lipid bilayer in the membrane conferred by the presence of lipopolysaccharides. Dr. Nikaido was awarded the Paul Ehrlich Prize of West Germany for his pioneering work on the biosynthesis of lipopolysaccharides, the Hoechst-Roussel Award of the American Society of Microbiology for his work on the role of the outer membrane in antibiotic resistance. He served as an assistant professor of bacteriology at Harvard Medical School and an assistant biochemist at Massachusetts General Hospital before he came to UC Berkeley in 1969. He received his doctor of medicine degree from Keio University in Tokyo.