At the Board of Directors meeting held on June 2 at Hokkaido University's Tokyo Office, candidates for each award were recommended to the Board of Directors following a rigorous screening process by the Award Selection Committee. As a result of deliberations by the Zoological Society of Japan Board of Directors, the recipients of the 2018 Zoological Society of Japan Awards have been decided as follows:

Zoological Society of Japan

2018 Zoological Society of Japan Award　2 items

Koji Tamura, Professor, Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University
Research on the development, regeneration, and evolution of vertebrate appendages

Reason for the award
Member Koji Tamura has conducted highly unique research on limb development, regeneration, and evolution using embryos of chickens, African clawed frogs, and other organisms. In his research on limb development, he has achieved significant results regarding anteroposterior axis patterning. Demonstrating the mechanism of action of retinoic acid,shh clarified how [it] is expressed in a restricted region at the posterior margin of the limb bud. Furthermore, [he] has proposed the hypothesis that "all vertebrates possess the potential to form appendages on the lateral trunk and dorsal midline." In addition, in regeneration research, by investigating the causes of why Xenopus laevis loses the ability to regenerate limbs upon reaching adulthood, [he] has challenged to clarify what capacities are necessary to regenerate a limb that is complete both morphologically and functionally. Furthermore, in the study of limb diversity, [he] demonstrated that the three digits in the avian wing possess the identities of digits 1, 2, and 3 out of the ancestral five digits. In recent years, [he] identified avian-specific gene expression regulatory regions and proposed an evolutionary scenario for how flight feathers came to be formed on the avian forelimb. Through such diverse research on vertebrate limbs, the achievements of Member Tamura, who has made immense contributions to the development of zoology, make him highly deserving of the Zoological Society of Japan Award. 

 Abstract by the Winner of the Academic Award (Koji Tamura)

Yutaka Sato (Yutaka Sato), Associate Professor, Division of Biological Science, Graduate School of Science, Kyoto University
Study on Genome-Based Gene Regulatory Networks in Ascidian Embryonic Development

Reason for the award
Member Yutaka Sato comprehensively elucidated the gene regulatory network in the embryogenesis of the ascidian *Ciona intestinalis*, which belongs to chordates. The ascidian genome was sequenced at a very early stage—the seventh among animals—and he made a major contribution to it, while also working hard on its subsequent refinement and database maintenance. Furthermore, he listed transcription factors and signaling molecules and analyzed all of them, successfully becoming the first in the world to elucidate the genome-wide gene regulatory network in early ascidian embryos. This has been highly praised for its comprehensiveness, as well as its originality and pioneering nature of being analyzed at the cellular level. In addition, through individual gene function analyses, he has achieved results showing a broad expansion into various fields. He has achieved results that significantly advance the understanding of the reasons why gene arrangement on the genome is maintained during the evolutionary process, and has also revealed important findings on the ectoderm fate determination mechanism and the mechanism by which maternal factors in the egg create gene expression patterns after fertilization. Thus, leading the research on the overall picture and structural analysis of the gene expression regulatory network system in early development, Member Yutaka Sato's achievements, which have made a tremendous contribution to the advancement of the field of embryology, make him highly deserving of the Zoological Science Award.

Academic Society Award Winner Abstract (Yutaka Sato)