FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Teresa Hendrix
(805) 756-7266
International Science Award Named in Honor of Cal Poly Professor
SAN LUIS OBISPO – An international science society has created
an award
recognizing scientific efforts in the study of cells and has named it
after a Cal Poly professor.
Professor Paul K. Nakane of Cal Poly’s Environmental
Biotechnology
Institute will be the first recipient of the award named in his honor
by
the International Federation of Societies for Histochemistry and
Cytochemistry.
Histochemistry and cytochemistry are branches of science that focus on
the study of the chemical composition and activities of tissues and
cells.
The group presented the award to Nakane at its international congress
in
San Diego July 24. Along with a plaque and a certificate, the award
includes an expenses-paid trip to the society’s international congress,
held every four years. The award will go to professionals who show
outstanding scientific contributions and international leadership in
advancing the disciplines of histochemistry and cytochemistry.
The international group named the award in Nakane’s honor in recognition
of his scientific accomplishments and leadership in scientific societies
in the United States and Japan, as well as in the International
Federation of Societies for Histochemistry and Cytochemistry, according
to IFSHC President Ron Van Noorden.
“The prize recognizes the role you have played as a scientist and
leader, and we can think of no person more deserving of the award than
yourself,” Van Noorden told Nakane in announcing the award and its
first
recipient.
Nakane, who has been with Cal Poly since 2003, said the award is a great
honor. “I’ve received many awards before, but to receive an
award named
after me is different,” he said. “To know that the Paul Nakane
prize
will be given to someone long after I am gone is a strange feeling.”
Nakane serves as a consultant to Cal Poly EBI Director and Professor
Emeritus Raul Cano, in addition to doing research projects at the
institute. This fall, he will begin a research project seeking to
develop a clinical medical test to identify specific antibiotics
effective against infectious bacteria and fungi within two hours after
receiving clinical specimens from infected patients.
If doctors are able to get test results more quickly and identify the
specific fungi and bacteria causing illness in patients, they will be
better able to prescribe targeted antibiotics rather than broad-spectrum
antibiotics, Nakane said.
Right now, when physicians wait for the results of throat cultures and
other bacterial tests, “The time required to obtain the information
is
too long, and so patients are treated with broad-spectrum antibiotics
prior to test results,” explained Nakane, who also holds a doctorate
in
medicine. That practice is resulting in the emergence of drug-resistant
strains of bacteria and fungi – something more rapid test results
could
combat.
He said he became interested in cells and mutation during science
classes on genetics when he was a high school student in his native
Japan.
Before coming to Cal Poly, Nakane served as a professor of pathology
at
the University of Colorado School of Medicine from 1976-1982, the
director of the Medical Research Institute at Tokai University in Japan
from 1982 to 1987, and from 1987 to 2003 was chair of the anatomy
department at Nagasaki University School of Medicine.
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