was a Japanese virologist. He shared the 1982 Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research with Harold E. Varmus and J. Michael Bishop for demonstrating how RNA tumor viruses cause cancer, and elucidating their role in combining, rescuing and maintaining oncogenes in the viral genome. Life Hidesaburo Hanafusa was born on December 1, 1929, in Hyogo Prefecture. He received his PhD in Biochemistry in 1960 from Osaka University, where he also met his future wife, Teruko. After his research in the US and France, he was appointed as professor of molecular oncology at the Rockefeller University in 1973, and returned to Japan in 1998, becoming director at the Osaka Bioscience Institute. He was a foreign associate of the US National Academy of Sciences and a member of the Japan Academy. He died on March 15, 2009, of liver cancer, at the age of 79. Awards 1982: Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research 1983: Asahi Prize 1986: G.H. Clowes Memorial award, American Association for Cancer Research 1993: Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. Prize 1995: Order of Culture 2000: Doctorate of Science, honoris causa, Rockefeller University See also List of members of the National Academy of Sciences (Medical genetics, hematology, and oncology) References External links 1929 births 2009 deaths Cancer researchers Japanese virologists Japanese molecular biologists Recipients of the Order of Culture Recipients of the Albert Lasker Award for Basic Medical Research Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Rockefeller University faculty Osaka University alumni People from Hyōgo Prefecture Deaths from cancer in Japan Deaths from liver cancer