Reiko Kuroda (黒田 玲子, Kuroda Reiko, born October 7, 1947)^[1] is a Japanese chemist who is a professor at the Department of Life Sciences at the University of Tokyo.^[2]

Early life and education

Kuroda was born in Akita but grew up in Miyagi, on the island of Honshu, Japan.^[3] She obtained her MSc (1972) and PhD (1975) in Chemistry from the University of Tokyo.^[4] Her doctorate focused on determining the stereochemistry of metal complexes.^[3]

Career

After her PhD, Kuroda worked at King's College London and the Institute of Cancer Research in the UK before returning to Japan in 1986.^[4] In 1992 she became the first woman to be made full professor of natural sciences at the University of Tokyo.^[4]

Kuroda's field of research is primarily chirality within both inorganic chemistry and organic chemistry.^[5] Part of her research has involved studying chirality in snail shells. Her work identified that the direction of the shell spiral is determined at very early stages of snail development.^[6] Her team later used CRISPR genetic editing to show that this process is dependent on a single gene, Lsdia1.^[7]

Kuroda has established the Science Interpreter Training Program at the University of Tokyo and was appointed to serve as a governor for the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre in 2006. She has also served as Vice-President for External Relations in the International Science Council.

Honours and awards

in 1993, Kuroda received the Saruhashi Prize for esteemed female scientists.^[8]

On June 10, 2009, Kuroda was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in its class for chemistry.^[5]

In 2013, Kuroda was awarded the L'Oréal-UNESCO Awards for Women in Science. She has been nominated for awards by the Human Frontier Science Programme (HFSP) and by AcademiaNet.