Dr. Hiromi Gunshin, 48 years, died Tuesday, May 13, 2008 at the Massachusetts General Hospital after a seven-month battle with colon cancer. Born in Kagawa Prefecture, Japan, she received her Doctorate in Nutritional Chemistry from the University of Tokyo. She resigned her tenured professorship from Yamagata University, Japan, and began her post-doctoral research career at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and then at Children’s Hospital in Boston, where she became a leading expert in the field of nutritional iron absorption. Her dedication to research led to her discovery and cloning of the metal-ion transporter known as DMT1 (see, Gunshin et al., Nature 1997), a break-through that could someday lead to advances in the treatment of hemachromatosis, a disease of the liver caused by toxic levels of iron in the human system. At the time of her passing, Dr. Gunshin was an Assistant Professor with the Department of Nutrition at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where she was a Principle Investigator and instructor.
Dr. Gunshin received numerous professional awards and recognitions for her research, and held concurrent positions as Assistant Instructor, Harvard Medical School and Visiting Researcher, Massachusetts General Hospital. She was also a two-year Bunting Fellow at Radcliffe College.
She is survived by her husband, Hermen Y. Yee (CDR, JAGC, USN), in Brockton, MA, ([email protected]), her father, Lt. Col. Masaru Gunshin (JPN Self Defense Force, retired), and her sister, Dr. Yoshimi Gunshin, M.D., in Japan.
Donations in memory of Hiromi may be made to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and the Jimmy Fund, 10 Brookline Place, Brookline, MA 02445; for online donations, www.dana-farber.org