IMF member to receive Nobel Prize

JAPAN: On October 9, 2002, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three people, including Koichi Tanaka, the assistant manager of the Life Science Laboratory in the Life Science Business Unit of the Analytical and Measuring Instruments Division at Shimadzu Corporation. Koichi Tanaka is a member of the Shimadzu Workers' Union at Shimadzu. The union is affiliated to the Japanese Association of Metal, Machine and Manufacturing Workers (JAM), one of the industrial federations belonging to the 2.3 million-strong Japan Council of Metalworkers' Unions (IMF-JC), an affiliate at international level to the IMF. The 43-year-old Tanaka, along with John B. Fenn, a professor at Virginia Commonwealth University in the U.S., received half of the chemistry prize for their development of soft desorption ionization methods for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules to identify and reveal the structures of such molecules. The IMF extends its warmest congratulations to Brother Tanaka, who is the 12th Japanese citizen to receive a Nobel Prize. Shimadzu Corporation, founded in 1875, is a transnational company providing high value-added products and systems, including measuring instruments, medical, aircraft and industrial equipment.