This post is a tribute to the late Dr. Yoshiki Sasai (笹井芳樹). If you would like your name added to this tribute please let me know. You are also welcome to add your own tributes in the comments.
In an era when the emerging field of regenerative medicine is just beginning to take wing, we learn of a tragic loss of a friend and colleague Yoshiki Sasai. Dr. Sasai was widely esteemed by those who knew him as an outstanding developmental biologist. His death is therefore a great loss for both the stem cell and developmental biology fields.
Dr. Sasai was not a scientist who was satisfied with incremental advances; he was creative and visionary. He focused on development of the brain, using pluripotent stem cells to generate self-organizing neural tubes in vitro. This ability to replicate organogenesis in the lab could revolutionize stem cell medicine and he was an important pioneer in this advance. He was also helping to develop a stem cell therapy for macular degeneration.
In short, his pioneering work will inspire regenerative medicine research for decades to come. Future generations will remember Yoshiki Sasai as a scientist who was fascinated by the beauty of embryonic development and was dedicated to understanding how so much complexity could arise so perfectly from the simplicity of a single cell. With this collective statement we wish to pay tribute to him and his exceptional contributions to science. He will be greatly missed.
Paul Knoepfler
Mike West
Bob Lanza
Jeanne Loring
Doug Sipp
Janet Rossant
Bernie Siegel
Jun Seita
Alexey Bersenev
Roman Reed
Zorica Becker-Kojic
Roy W. Smolens Jr.
Harumi Sakaguchi
Cheng-Yoong Pang
M. Chandrashekhar
Kenneth Lee
Jeanne Adiwinata Pawitan
Yu Yamamoto
Rosario Isasi
Christopher Fasano
Peter Burrows
Don Paul Kovarcik
Jennifer Aparicio
Andras Dinnyes, Hungary
Mohamed Elgafi
Nalina Nagarajan
Mitradas Panicker
Florian T. Merkle
Robert H. Broyles
Don C. Reed
Denis Ivanov
Joel C. Glover
Bill Ritchie
Susan Lim
Tim Lee
Donald Newgreen
Joe Riggs
Jayakumar Rajadas
Krishna Pantakani
Asawari Bapat
Caroline Mathen
Luis Meseguer-Olmo
Jason Wen
Tiziano Barberi
Chris Mason
Luciano Conti
André Brändli
Y. Murat Elcin
Tran Doan Ngoc Tran
Magdalene Seiler, UC Irvine
Ahmed Mansouri
Kyle Cetrulo and Curtis L. Cetrulo, M.D.
Alan Fernandez
Carla Mellough
Prabhu Mishra
Ila
William W. Bauser
Nikolaos Mitrousis
Xiaodong Liu
Maria Longobardi
Please add my name
Maria Longobardi
Xiaodong Liu
Dr. Sasai, you will be missed!
Nikolaos Mitrousis
Please add my name
William W. Bauser
Pl add my name.
Regards,
Prabhu Mishra
A tremendous loss for the scientific world !! We have lost a great scientist who has given new hope…add my name also
Dear Paul,
Please add my name.
Thank you.
Carla Mellough
Thank you, Dr. Sasai, and may your soul rest in peace.
Kim Gosselin
Kyle Cetrulo and Curtis L. Cetrulo, M.D.
Please kindly add my name to the digital tribute to Dr. Sasai
Ahmed Mansouri
Please add my name to the digital tribute to late Dr. Sasai
Tran Doan Ngoc Tran
Dear Paul,
Please add my name. We all owe a lot to Dr. Sasai’s creativity.
Magdalene Seiler, UC Irvine
Dear Paul,
Please add my name to the digital tribute to late Dr. Sasai.
Y. Murat Elcin
Kindly add my name:
André Brändli
It has been a tremendous loss for the stem cell field.
Please add my name to the list of colleagues that wish to honor Yoshiki Sasai, a brilliant man and scientist.
Luciano Conti
Dear Paul,
Please add my name to the digital tribute to the late Dr. Yoshiki Sasai.
Thank you, Chris
PLease add my name to the list Tiziano Barberi
Why isn’t our culture celebrating people like this brilliant scientist every single day instead of celebrity worship? Yoshiki Sasai was a hero and others like him will change our world and the lives of millions suffering with diseases and conditions.
My tribute and deepest condolences for the loss.
Rest in Peace,
Ali Aldibbiat, Newcastle England
Luis Meseguer-Olmo
Jason Wen
Caroline Mathen
Its a great loss………RIP……please add me name Asawari Bapat
please add me to the list..
Joe Riggs
Please add my name: Jayakumar Rajadas
A significant loss, my deepest condolences – Harish Palagummi
Please add my name: Donald Newgreen
Yoshiki Sasai’s death is a major blow to regenerative medicine research and an important lesson in the disproportionate interaction of a scientific problem (which was a minor misstep in the grand scheme of science) and the general media, with its hunger for dispute and sensation.
Tim Lee
pl add me
susan lim
Bill Ritchie
Please add my name: Joel C. Glover
Please add my name: Denis Ivanov
I wish so much he had talked with some of his friends before apparently taking his life. We none of us belong to ourselves alone; he had much more to give the world. Please add my name, Don C. Reed
Please add:
Robert H. Broyles
The news hit me hard. Please add my name as well to honor this great scientist.
Florian T. Merkle
Please add my name to the tribute. Thanks.
Mitradas Panicker
All of us at the California Project to Cure Blindness wish to convey our condolences and also our encouragement to continue efforts at RIKEN to develop stem cell based therapies for ocular disease.
A great and tragic loss to the field of developmental and regenerative biology!
Nalina Nagarajan
Added my name
Andras Dinnyes, Hungary
Jennifer Aparicio
Don Paul Kovarcik
Peter Burrows
Hi Paul please add my name
Christopher Fasano
My condolences to his family and all the friends.
Rosario Isasi
I, too, am saddened by passing of Dr. Yoshiki Sasai. This tragic death of Dr. Sasai was driven by aggressive reporting of two major Japanese media, NHK TV and Mainichi Newspaper, among others, and Riken’s inability to control criticism made by a few scientists who disagreed with Dr. Obokata’s paper that was published in the British magazine, Nature. Disagreement is common to any scientific discoveries, and it promotes others to pursue challenging research, which is healthy for scientific advancement. We have witnessed this since the day human beings showed interests in scientific truth early in our civilization. However, it becomes ugly when the disagreement turn into political judgement of right and wrong. In science, there is no right or wrong, only the truth. How many discoveries were made in the past by so called mistakes or by accident? The media have no right to judge scientific works. It should report what was done and nothing more, and follow how these discoveries unfold. Dr. Obokata is a promising Japanese female scientist. Dr. Sasai gave her an encouraging word to Dr. Obokata in his death note to her to succeed in STAP cell research. It is my humble opinion that Riken must create a working environment where female scientists could perform their research with joy and without fear. Japanese science is among the top in the world but it will not be accepted by the world scientific societies if Japanese female scientists are continue to be looked down. Riken is responsible for improving this condition, and so is the government of Japan.
Dear Maxwell, you are fully off topic with your post here. This is a tribute to the great science Dr. Sasai has done during his career. Indeed he has been a great scientist and this is a great loss for the community.
About the rest of your post. in science there is more than right or wrong, unfortunately there is also fraud and this is the main reason why these two papers were so controversial. Sadly, Ms. Obokata destroyed the future of many good Japanese female scientist by her blatant and short-sighted actions.
AB
Jeanne Adiwinata Pawitan
Regenerative medicine lost a truly transformative scientist. So Sad for science and patients.
John DE VOS
Agree that the loss of this brilliant man was in part due to today’s lightening speed judgement within social media and in the news – often without factual basis or true understanding. What a pity, and what a loss to the world.
Kindly add my name too.
Cheng-Yoong Pang
Harumi Sakaguchi
I wrote this last week via twitter/scoopit: http://sco.lt/5Powy1
msemporda:
Much has been written about the controversy surrounding the publishing of a new methodology for adult cells to acquire pluripotency via STAP reprogramming protocols. However, no one would have believed the latest twist to the saga if it had been suggested as a possibility. Yoshiki Sasai’s death has come as a shock to the stem cell community. It is a sad testimony to the stresses involved in leading the field and a body blow to progress. A brilliant talent has been lost, unnecessarily. The rarefied world of truly breakthrough science and the scientists who devote their lives to the endeavor are few and far between. Japan has its share and Yoshiki Sasai was one of them. His name and reputation in embryology and tissue engineering was known worldwide in the field and beyond. He gave hope to many that one day we will be able to provide solutions to those that are visually impaired and suffer from CNS disorders. Yoshiki Sasai’s science was selected by UCL in London to develop hESC photoreceptor cells and optical tissue sheets. This by itself only scratches the surface of what value his scientific efforts will spawn. When considering the work of the top scientists in the stem cell world I would always include Sasai in that list. He was as a member of a select group that pioneered approaches to solve human disease using man’s most versatile and powerful tool – human embryonic stem cells. His pursuit of in-vitro development of complex tissue systems of the CNS has led the way for many to follow. Science they say is built on the back of peers – Yoshiki Sasai’s science will be remembered as a step up. Condolences. Cheers Michael
Roy W. Smolens Jr.
Zorica Becker-Kojic
Roman Reed