Gordon H. Sato
Encyclopedia
Dr. Gordon Hisashi Sato, Ph.D. (born December 17, 1927) is an American cell biologist who first attained prominence for his discovery that polypeptide factors required for the culture of mammalian cells outside the body are also important regulators of differentiated cell functions and of utility in culture of new types of cells for use in research and biotechnology. For this work he was elected in 1984 to the United States National Academy of Sciences
United States National Academy of Sciences
The National Academy of Sciences is a corporation in the United States whose members serve pro bono as "advisers to the nation on science, engineering, and medicine." As a national academy, new members of the organization are elected annually by current members, based on their distinguished and...

. In the mid 1980s he established the Manzanar Project aimed at attacking the planet's most critical problems as poverty, hunger, environmental pollution, and global warming through low tech biotechnological methods in salt water deserts that can be transferred to the indigenous inhabitants.

Early life

Sato was the son of an Issei
Issei
Issei is a Japanese language term used in countries in North America, South America and Australia to specify the Japanese people first to immigrate. Their children born in the new country are referred to as Nisei , and their grandchildren are Sansei...

(Japanese-born immigrant) father and a first generation American born Nisei
Nisei
During the early years of World War II, Japanese Americans were forcibly relocated from their homes in the Pacific coast states because military leaders and public opinion combined to fan unproven fears of sabotage...

mother in Los Angeles, California. His fisherman and gardener father taught him the basic concepts of how to cultivate and appreciate living things both on land and water. He was raised on Terminal Island
Terminal Island
Terminal Island is an island located in Los Angeles County, California between Los Angeles Harbor and Long Beach Harbor. Originally a mudflat known to the Spanish as Isla Raza de Buena Gente, and later called Rattlesnake Island, it has officially been Terminal Island since 1918...

, East San Pedro, where a substantial Japanese American
Japanese American
are American people of Japanese heritage. Japanese Americans have historically been among the three largest Asian American communities, but in recent decades have become the sixth largest group at roughly 1,204,205, including those of mixed-race or mixed-ethnicity...

 community had developed prior to World War II. Since the area was the home of the Pacific fleet, the Japanese community was forced to relocate after the bombing of Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...

. After first moving into Los Angeles, in 1942 his family was forced to move to the Manzanar
Manzanar
Manzanar is most widely known as the site of one of ten camps where over 110,000 Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California's Owens Valley between the towns of Lone Pine to the south and Independence to the north, it is...

 relocation camp for internment of Japanese Americans in the Owens Desert of California. He attended Manzanar High School in the camp where he was a member of the camp baseball team and played saxophone in the camp jazz band called the Jive Bombers. During internment in Manzanar he learned the challenges of gardening in a desert, the importance of becoming self-sufficient under deprived conditions, and sympathy toward aggrieved peoples. After graduation from Manzanar High School in 1944, he attended Central College in Pella, Iowa for a year while working at the Wakonda Country Club before enlisting in the US Army. In the Army, after service in Korea he landed in Hakata, Japan and saw the home country of one of his parents and his grandparents for the first time.

Academic career

Supported by the GI bill, Sato received a bachelors degree in biochemistry at the University of Southern California
University of Southern California
The University of Southern California is a private, not-for-profit, nonsectarian, research university located in Los Angeles, California, United States. USC was founded in 1880, making it California's oldest private research university...

 in 1951 and obtained a Ph.D. in biophysics at the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...

 in 1955. His mentor was Nobel Prize winner Max Delbrück
Max Delbrück
Max Ludwig Henning Delbrück was a German-American biophysicist and Nobel laureate.-Biography:Delbrück was born in Berlin, German Empire...

. After post-doctoral training with Gunther Stent at the University of California-Berkeley and Theodore Puck
Theodore Puck
Theodore Puck was an American geneticist born in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Chicago public schools and obtained his bachelors, masters, and doctoral degree from the University of Chicago...

 in Genetics at the University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, he was a professor of Biochemistry at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

, Boston, MA from 1958-1969. He joined the Department of Biology at the University of California-San Diego where he was a professor from 1970 through 1983. Sato spent summer 1974 through spring 1975 on sabbatical working with Dr. Niels Kaj Jerne
Niels Kaj Jerne
Niels Kaj Jerne, FRS was a Danish immunologist. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1984. The citation read "For theories concerning the specificity in development and control of the immune system and the discovery of the principle for production of monoclonal antibodies"....

 at the Basel Institute for Immunology
Basel Institute for Immunology
The Basel Institute for Immunology was founded in 1969 as a basic research institute in immunology located at 487 Grenzacherstrasse, Basel, Switzerland on the Rhine River down the street from the main Hoffmann-La Roche campus near the Swiss-German border. The institute opened its doors in 1971...

 in Basel
Basel
Basel or Basle In the national languages of Switzerland the city is also known as Bâle , Basilea and Basilea is Switzerland's third most populous city with about 166,000 inhabitants. Located where the Swiss, French and German borders meet, Basel also has suburbs in France and Germany...

, Switzerland
Switzerland
Switzerland name of one of the Swiss cantons. ; ; ; or ), in its full name the Swiss Confederation , is a federal republic consisting of 26 cantons, with Bern as the seat of the federal authorities. The country is situated in Western Europe,Or Central Europe depending on the definition....

.

Sato was recruited as director of the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center
The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center
The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center was a non-profit research and education center on 10 Old Barn Road in Lake Placid, New York. The Center was established by a gift of of land and $3 million dollars to the Tissue Culture Association from the W. Alton Jones Foundation through efforts of...

, Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid, New York
Lake Placid is a village in the Adirondack Mountains in Essex County, New York, United States. As of the 2000 census, the village had a population of 2,638....

 (1983 to 1992). His vision was to build a research university similar to Rockefeller University
Rockefeller University
The Rockefeller University is a private university offering postgraduate and postdoctoral education. It has a strong concentration in the biological sciences. It is also known for producing numerous Nobel laureates...

 in the peaceful setting of the Adirondack Mountains
Adirondack Mountains
The Adirondack Mountains are a mountain range located in the northeastern part of New York, that runs through Clinton, Essex, Franklin, Fulton, Hamilton, Herkimer, Lewis, Saint Lawrence, Saratoga, Warren, and Washington counties....

 of New York. Instead of the dependence on the labile support of individual government and private grants, the goal was to fund and endow the institute by proceeds from a for-profit biotechnology venture called Upstate Biotechnology, Inc.(UBI) which he established in the early 80’s. The idea was a radical concept for the period in which a non-profit research institute (W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center) would be supported and endowed from profits of a for-profit entity (UBI) solely owned by the non-profit entity. Start-up funds for UBI were solely from loans from tax-deductible gifts to the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center in order to avoid conflict with private interests with the sole goal of funding the non-profit research goals.

Beyond his basic contributions in cell biology, Sato is known for his unique impact on many students and associates from around the world particularly from Japan and China, both in cell biology and the Manzanar Project. He was one of the first to personally recruit Chinese students and visiting scientists during visits to major Chinese universities at the beginning of the Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...

 Open Door Policy
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a concept in foreign affairs, which usually refers to the policy in 1899 allowing multiple Imperial powers access to China, with none of them in control of that country. As a theory, the Open Door Policy originates with British commercial practice, as was reflected in...

 in the early 80’s. He first developed the idea of companies that directly market research reagents from individual researchers who know most about the product to the science community at large. This concept both helped fund the original investigators who were source of products, distributed essential research tools to the scientific community at large and generated cash flow to support basic research activities. Collaborative Research, Inc. was the first successful venture of this kind.

Sato is co-inventor with his son, Denry Sato, and John Mendelson, CEO of The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center
The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center is one of the nation's original three comprehensive cancer centers established by the National Cancer Act of 1971. It is both a degree-granting academic institution and a cancer treatment and research center located at the Texas Medical Center in...

, of the original technology used in chemotherapeutic agents based on inhibiting the epidermal growth factor receptor
Epidermal growth factor receptor
The epidermal growth factor receptor is the cell-surface receptor for members of the epidermal growth factor family of extracellular protein ligands...

 as Cetuximab
Cetuximab
Cetuximab is a chimeric monoclonal antibody, an epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor, given by intravenous infusion for treatment of metastatic colorectal cancer and head and neck cancer.- Distribution :Cetuximab is manufactured and distributed in North America by ImClone and Bristol-Myers...

 (Erbitux).

While director of the Lake Placid Center from 1983 to 1992, Sato established the Manzanar Project named after the camp where he and his family were interned in 1942. In 1992 soon after Upstate Biotechnology, Inc. became profitable, private interests acquired control of the company and the mission was diverted from support and endowment of the W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center
The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center
The W. Alton Jones Cell Science Center was a non-profit research and education center on 10 Old Barn Road in Lake Placid, New York. The Center was established by a gift of of land and $3 million dollars to the Tissue Culture Association from the W. Alton Jones Foundation through efforts of...

. Sato subsequently resigned as director and devoted himself full time to the Manzanar Project.

The Manzanar Project

The project aimed at making salt water and desert combinations productive through application of the simplest, low cost rational scientific approaches had its first prototype in the Salton Sea
Salton Sea
The Salton Sea is a shallow, saline, endorheic rift lake located directly on the San Andreas Fault, predominantly in California's Imperial Valley. The lake occupies the lowest elevations of the Salton Sink in the Colorado Desert of Imperial and Riverside counties in Southern California. Like Death...

 in southern California. A simple food chain consisting of sewage and other waste on which salt- and heat-resistant algae would feed that then fed brine shrimp that then could be utilized in aquaculture
Aquaculture
Aquaculture, also known as aquafarming, is the farming of aquatic organisms such as fish, crustaceans, molluscs and aquatic plants. Aquaculture involves cultivating freshwater and saltwater populations under controlled conditions, and can be contrasted with commercial fishing, which is the...

 as a food source for larger fishes was developed.

The idea was then expanded to larger scale manmade salt water tidal ponds in coastal deserts that could be utilized for aquaculture in controlled ponds and a tide-controlled food source for larger scale fish ranching that would come to the tidal wash on the coast to feed. Relatively formal conventional pilot projects supported through government programs in China, the Atacama Desert
Atacama Desert
The Atacama Desert is a plateau in South America, covering a strip of land on the Pacific coast, west of the Andes mountains. It is, according to NASA, National Geographic and many other publications, the driest desert in the world...

 of Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

 and the Sudan
Sudan
Sudan , officially the Republic of the Sudan , is a country in North Africa, sometimes considered part of the Middle East politically. It is bordered by Egypt to the north, the Red Sea to the northeast, Eritrea and Ethiopia to the east, South Sudan to the south, the Central African Republic to the...

 convinced Sato that the simple aquaculture concept was unlikely to reach those who need and could benefit from it most when administered through government agencies. Through contacts developed in the field that started as modest grassroots relief efforts for suffering remote villagers in Eritrea
Eritrea
Eritrea , officially the State of Eritrea, is a country in the Horn of Africa. Eritrea derives it's name from the Greek word Erethria, meaning 'red land'. The capital is Asmara. It is bordered by Sudan in the west, Ethiopia in the south, and Djibouti in the southeast...

 during the late stages of its war of independence with Ethiopia, Sato solidified and focused the approaches behind the current Manzanar Project that centers in the Eritrean desert on the Red Sea
Red Sea
The Red Sea is a seawater inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. The connection to the ocean is in the south through the Bab el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. In the north, there is the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and the Gulf of Suez...

. The project focuses on building economic development by application of the simplest biological principles to develop an entire self-sufficient economy village by village.

The base of the support system centers on development of mangrove
Mangrove
Mangroves are various kinds of trees up to medium height and shrubs that grow in saline coastal sediment habitats in the tropics and subtropics – mainly between latitudes N and S...

 forests along the desert coastline. Mangrove trees grow in salt water, provide the base of an entire ecology for aquatic life, and provide lumber for fuel and construction and food for indigenous livestock as camels, goats and sheep. Coupled with Sato’s earlier developments in food chain generation for aquaculture, the mangrove forests provide both a land and sea based economy that once local needs for food and housing are met can be capitalized into a specialty seafood export market. Sato envisions that saltwater deserts when sufficiently populated with mangrove forests and other plants that can flourish in salt water could counteract global impact of deforestation in other areas of the world and bring desert areas into agricultural production.

Sato’s first working village prototype is Hargigo on whose nearby coastline construction of the forests provides jobs for both men and women, the latter of which was unheard of in the local area prior to the project. The population of Hargigo was essentially devastated at one time during the Eritrean War of Independence
Eritrean War of Independence
The Eritrean War of Independence was a conflict fought between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean separatists, both before and during the Ethiopian Civil War. The war started when Eritrea’s autonomy within Ethiopia, where troops were already stationed, was unilaterally revoked...

. Sato and the villagers planted a Mangrove Memorial Garden with the objective of one mangrove tree dedicated to every villager killed in the 1975 massacre. It is estimated that the Manzanar Project has planted nearly one million mangrove trees on the coast of Eritrea since the project began. In a February 2007 National Geographic article, Sato was referred to as a "maritime Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed
Johnny Appleseed , born John Chapman, was an American pioneer nurseryman who introduced apple trees to large parts of Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois...

."

Awards and honours

In 1982 Sato share Brandeis University’s Rosenstiel Award
Rosenstiel Award
In 1971, the Lewis S. Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Basic Medical Research was established as an expression of the conviction that educational institutions have an important role to play in the encouragement and development of basic science as it applies to medicine.Medals are...

 with subsequent 1986 Nobel prize winners, Stanley Cohen (neurologist)
Stanley Cohen (neurologist)
Stanley Cohen is an American biochemist and Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology and Medicine .He received his bachelor's degree in 1943 from Brooklyn College, where he had double-majored in chemistry and biology. After working as a bacteriologist at a milk processing plant to earn money, he...

 and Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini
Rita Levi-Montalcini , Knight Grand Cross is an Italian neurologist who, together with colleague Stanley Cohen, received the 1986 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discovery of nerve growth factor...

, and in 1984 he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences for his contributions to cell biology.

In 2002 Sato was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award of the Society for In Vitro Biology in 2002 for his contributions in both cell biology and global issues.

Sato was a Laureate of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise in 2002. The annual award with a cash prize of $100,000 recognizes men and women who are breaking new ground in areas which advance human knowledge and well-being.

In 2005 Sato received the Blue Planet Award, a cash prize of 50 million Japanese yen sponsored by the Asahi Glass Foundation, for developing a new mangrove planting technology in Eritrea and through its utilization thus showing the possibility of building a sustainable local community in the poorest area of the world.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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