Ryuzo Yanagimachi - Early and Later Years

Early and Later Years

Yanagimachi was born in Japan. He received a BS in zoology in 1952 and a DSc in animal embryology in 1960 from Hokkaido University. He then taught high school for one year because he could not find a research position.

Yanagimachi applied for a post-doctoral position with Dr. M. C. Chang of the Worcester Foundation for Experimental Biology in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. He got this position and there discovered how to fertilize hamster eggs "in vitro." This work led to in vitro fertilization of eggs of human and other mammalian species.

In 1964 he returned to Hokkaido University as a temporary lecturer with the possibility of later being appointed to an assistant professorship. However, another person eventually got the position.

In 1966 Yanagimachi ended up at the University of Hawaii as an assistant professor and has become a full professor of anatomy, biochemistry, physiology and reproductive biology at the John A. Burns School of Medicine. After working for 38 years at the university of Hawaii, he retired the end of 2004 to become a professor emeritus, but keeps working with junior fellows.

He is married to Hiroko, a former child psychologist. She could not find work in her field when they came to the U.S. due to a language barrier, so she went to work with researchers in his lab as an electron microscopist. They have no children.