On June 19, 2017 the winners of the German Innovation Award (GIA) “Gottfried Wagener Prize 2017” were announced during a festive ceremony at the Grand Hyatt Tokyo.

The GIA was established in 2008 by the German Chamber of Commerce in Japan and technology-focused German companies to promote cross-sector collaboration between industry and science while fostering the creation of new and the expansion of existing German-Japanese research networks. The GIA is awarded once a year to Japan-based young scientists for outstanding research. This year the prize was awarded in four categories, namely “Materials”, “Life Sciences”, “Energy” and in for the first time “Digitalization and Mobility”. Each of the GIA winners received 2,500,000 Yen prize money. 68 applications from affiliates of 31 different universities and other research institutions were submitted for the GIA 2017.    

The award ceremony was opened by Marcus Schürmann, Delegate of German Industry and Commerce in Japan. The German Ambassador to Japan Dr. Hans Carl von Werthern and Minister of Science and Technology Policy Yosuke Tsuruho addressed the audience as guests of honor. The concluding remarks of the first part the ceremony and the following announcement of the awardees were made by Professor Dr. Masuo Aizawa, Counselor to the President of the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and Chairman of the distinguished permanent Jury of the GIA. 

The prize in the “Materials” category was awarded to Professor Dr. Tatsuo Kaneko of the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) and his former team member Dr. Seiji Tateyama. Professor Kaneko and Dr. Tateyama developed transparent bioplastics with high thermal and mechanical performance using exotic 4-aminocinnamic acid. The result of their research is a transparent bioplastic that is three times stronger than glass. With this framework, the polymer bioplastic may become a substitute for glass and dramatically influence the use of environment friendly bioplastics.

Professor Dr. Shuro Nakajima of the Wakayama University received the award in the “Digitalization and Mobility” category for the development of a compact four-wheel drive personal mobility vehicle, the RT-Mover PType WA (P-WA), which facilitates the freedom of movement of all people. Professor Nakajima combined mechanical, electrical, and software technologies to enable elderly and disabled people to actively move around in their daily lives, and manufactured the PType1-3, which he improved to the latest P-WA after testing. 

Recipient of the GIA 2017 in the “Energy” category became Professor Dr. Katsuaki Tanabe of the Kyoto University for investigating novel semiconductor junction technologies for a green photoelectron device. Using these junction technologies, Professor Tanabe manufactured an ultra-low power consumption, highs-speed, high-capacity communication silicon substrate InAs/GaAs quantum dot laser for operation. With this, Professor Tanabe invented the world’s smallest oscillation threshold current density and the highest oscillation temperature for various types of semiconductor lasers on silicons.

Dr. Fumihiko Ishikawa of RIKEN received the award in the “Life Sciences” category for understanding and overcoming Leukemia and Poor Prognosis using a humanized mouse. Dr. Ishikawa was able to devise a means for bridging the large gap between animal experiments and human clinical implementation using his independently developed method of extracting highly pure hematopoietic stem cells that later differentiate into human blood cells. Transplanting those cells into immunodeficient mice immediately after birth, he successfully created the first humanized mouse that could maintain the human hematopoietic and immune system. 

Altogether 180 or so guests from academia, business, politics and the press attended the ceremony. The following reception provided an opportunity to the participants to exchange thoughts in a relaxed atmosphere. 
The ceremony was live-streamed over the internet. The recording of the ceremony can still be accessed via the following link: german-innovation-award.jp

 German Innovation Award “Gottfried Wagener Prize 2017” Winner

<Materials>

Prof. Dr. Tatsuo KanekoProfessor, Graduate School of Advanced Science and Technology, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology“Development of transparent bioplastics with high thermal/mechanical performance using exotic amino acids”

Team Member: 
Dr. Seiji Tateyama
Lecturer, Graduate School of Advanced Science and Technology, Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (At the time of the application)
R&D Division, Kanazawa Laboratories, Osaka Organic Chemical Industry Ltd. (Present)

<Digitalization and Mobility>

Prof. Dr. Shuro NakajimaProfessor, Department of Systems Engineering, Faculty of Systems Engineering, Wakayama University“Personal Mobility Vehicle for Daily Life, RT-Mover PType WA, which gives all of people the freedom of mobility in coming future”

<Energy>

Prof. Dr. Katsuaki TanabeAssociate Professor, Department of Chemical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering, Kyoto University“Green Optoelectronic Devices by Novel Semiconductor Bonding Technologies”

<Life Sciences>

Dr. Fumihiko Ishikawa
Group Director, Laboratory for Human Disease Models, Center for Integrative Medical Sciences, RIKEN
“Targeting poor prognosis leukemia through creation of humanized mice”