In this biography
Quick facts
- Born
- 1947
- Birthplace
- Not established in the selected records
- Country
- Japan
- Nationality
- Not independently established
- Known for
- Chirality research
- Doctorate
- Chemistry, 1975
- Research collaborator
- Masanori Abe
Why this life matters
She connected handedness in chemistry with questions in biological development.
Timeline
Key moments
Return to Japan
Moved to the University of Tokyo.
Joint record
Published the selected snail study.
Chemistry and British laboratories
Kuroda earned her Tokyo masterโs degree in 1972 and chemistry doctorate in 1975. In Britain she worked with Stephen Mason and Steve Neidle, including at Kingโs College London and the Institute of Cancer Research.
That training linked molecular structure and spectroscopy with biological problems.
Sources for this section: [1]
A return and a wider scientific question
She returned to the University of Tokyo in 1986.
Her work extended across spectroscopy, crystallography, chemistry and developmental biology, with left-right asymmetry as a connecting question.
Handedness at one scale does not automatically explain a later organismal feature. The research asks how such connections can be established experimentally.
Snail development with Abe
With Masanori Abe she reported maternal-genotype evidence concerning shell coiling in Lymnaea stagnalis in 2019.
A 2020 correction clarified gene names and narrowed the priority statement to germline transmission rather than the first use of CRISPR in a mollusc.
The result should be read in that corrected form, without erasing earlier groups or expanding the observation to humans.
Scientific communication and policy
Her activities also included science education and policy, ICSU leadership and G7 gender-equality advisory work for the UK in 2021 and Germany in 2022. Its May 2024 profile records her Chubu and Tokyo affiliations.
Her science education and policy work carried questions about research practice into public and international institutions, extending the cross-disciplinary character of her laboratory career.
Sources for this section: [2]
Quick answers
Frequently asked questions about Reiko Kuroda
- Does the corrected paper claim the first use of CRISPR in any mollusc?
- No. The correction narrows the priority claim to successful germline transmission.
Keep exploring
Lives connected to this story
- Jennifer Doudna
Compare another use of molecular tools in a distinct biological question.
- V. Narry Kim
Read a different molecular-biology research career.
Sources and further reading
Explore the evidence
These references support the biography and offer further reading. Official records, first-person accounts and independent reporting provide different perspectives; image records document attribution and licensing.
- 1. Kingโs College London biographyReiko Kuroda
- 2. International Science Council, profile updated May 2024Reiko Kuroda
- 3. Masanori Abe and Reiko Kuroda, Development 146, dev175976, 2019 (corrected online version)The development of CRISPR for a mollusc establishes the formin Lsdia1 as the long-sought gene for snail dextral/sinistral coiling
- 4. Development 147, dev180778, 2020Correction: The development of CRISPR for a molluscโฆ
