Professor Susumu Tonegawa (1939–2026)
Dear members of the MIT community,
I write to share the sad news that Susumu Tonegawa, the Picower Professor of Biology and Neuroscience, died suddenly this weekend at his home in California.
Born and raised in Japan, he earned an undergraduate degree in chemistry at Kyoto University and his PhD from the University of California, San Diego, in the then-new field of molecular biology. An early star, Susumu began his career with a postdoc stint at the Salk Institute followed by more than a decade at the Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland.
Research he led in Basel solved a longstanding mystery: How can the immune system, working with a comparatively small number of genes, build an unlimited array of antibodies? For explicating this phenomenon, in 1987 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
By the time of the prize, however, Professor Tonegawa was already well established at MIT – and riding his restless curiosity to exciting progress in a wholly different field: neuroscience. In 1994, he founded MIT’s Center for Learning and Memory, a scientific community designed to advance fundamental, curiosity-driven neuroscience research across the spectrum from molecules to mind. By 2002, it had become the Picower Institute, which continues to thrive today. Through his own lab, Susumu made significant contributions to understanding of how the brain stores memories, including the discovery and elucidation of “engrams.”
You can read more about Professor Tonegawa’s life and career in the MIT News obituary.
A Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator and director of the RIKEN-MIT Laboratory for Neural Circuit Genetics at MIT, Susumu was a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences. He published well over 300 papers, the latest just last year.
Having shared a dinner conversation with him not long ago, I share the sense of shock at his sudden passing. If you or anyone you know would like comfort and counsel or just a listening ear, I encourage you to make use of our many campus resources, listed below.
In time, the many communities Susumu belonged to will create opportunities to mourn his loss and celebrate his life.
With deepest sympathy,
Sally Kornbluth
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