Hiroshi Hamada elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society

Hiroshi Hamada, team leader of the Laboratory for Organismal Patterning at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) has been elected as a Foreign Member of the renowned Royal Society, the United Kingdom’s national science academy and the oldest scientific academy in continuous existence in the world. Dr. Hamada was recognized for his contribution to the field of developmental biology, specifically to the understanding of how the vertebrate body axis is established and how left-right asymmetry arises in embryos during early development.

Upon learning about his election as a Foreign Member of the Royal Society, Dr. Hamada said, “It is a great honor to be recognized by the Royal Society, which has a long history of scientific excellence. I thank my lab members, collaborators and friends in the developmental biology community for motivating and supporting me over the years.”

The Royal Society has a history dating back to 1660, and Fellows and Foreign Members include the world’s most eminent scientists who are elected for life to the Royal Society through a peer review process on the basis of excellence of science. There are currently approximately 1,700 Fellows and Foreign Members, which include 85 Nobel Laureates. Each year, up to 52 Fellows and up to 10 Foreign Members are elected from around 800 candidates who are proposed by the existing Fellowship. This year there were 51 Fellows and 10 Foreign Members along with one Honorary Fellow elected to the Royal Society. For more information, see the announcement from the Royal Society.