2 of Nobel laureates immigrated to U.S. in postwar Japan brain drain+

WOODS HOLE, Mass./CHICAGO, Oct. 9 Kyodo - Two of this year's four Japanese-born Nobel Prize laureates, Osamu Shimomura and Yoichiro Nambu, said they escaped the poor research conditions in Japan in
the days after World War II and were attracted to tough but exciting research activities in the United States.

Both Shimomura, 80, and Nambu, 87, are known as scientists who immigrated to
the United States in the so-called brain drain seeking better research
conditions there. But it was not only Japanese scientists at that time. Many
researchers from other countries also immigrated to the United States.
Shimomura, 80, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry, is professor
emeritus at Boston University and also a former senior researcher at the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Nambu, 87, who was
awarded the physics prize, is professor emeritus at the University of Chicago.
Both Shimomura and Nambu still continue their research activities in the United
States.
Nambu, who has obtained U.S. nationality, became a part-time researcher at the
University of Tokyo in 1946, the year after Japan's surrender in World War II.
Nambu said Japan experienced a severe food shortage in those days. ''Commuting
by train from the college dormitory to the work site, I couldn't work sometimes
because of hunger,'' he recalled.
''So, I lived in the university laboratory and slept on a straw mat on a lab
bench. That kind of tough life continued for three years,'' he said.
In 1952, Nambu earned a recommendation from physicist Shinichiro Tomonaga
(1906-1979), Japan's second Nobel laureate, to become a researcher at Princeton
University.
''I wondered if I was in the heaven,'' Nambu said, recalling a rich life in a
nice academic town full of greenery.
Nambu said he was able to concentrate on his research in the United States
where young scientists from around the world worked hard on their own studies.
Shimomura immigrated to the United States in 1960 when Japan was still
recovering from its war defeat. ''I was too poor to conduct my own research.
Americans were rich,'' Shimomura said.
But Shimomura said he faced difficulties conducting research in the United
States. ''I had to raise my own research funds through my own efforts. I had to
continue to achieve results to raise my research funds,'' recalled Shimomura.
Shimomura said he paid a salary to himself out of the research funds he raised
when he was a researcher at Princeton University. ''Everyone must continue to
try his best. It is tough in America as far as this point is concerned. There
is no Japanese-style mercy in America.''
Research conditions in Japan have improved sharply more than 60 years after the
end of the war. ''Better research can be conducted in Japan,'' thanks to
improvements in equipment and facilities for researchers, Shimomura said. ''I
can't say clearly if I would move to the United States today.''
Shimomura said he has a laboratory at his home even after his retirement --
perhaps a luxury that researchers in Japan cannot even wish for. ''Researchers
can still work in better conditions in the United States,'' he said.
Nambu said he goes to the University of Chicago once or twice a week. This
indicates that scientists can continue working on lifetime research.
Meanwhile, in an interview with reporters Wednesday at the Woods Hole
Oceanographic Institution, Shimomura said his studies started in Nagasaki when
he was a student at the Nagasaki Medical College, one of the predecessors to
Nagasaki University.
''The (1945) atomic bombing (of Nagasaki) changed my attitude about life,''
Shimomura said. His home was only 12 kilometers away from ground zero. ''I saw
many bodies being moved out of the city every day. I felt sorry for them.''
Shimomura told reporters he had no interest in pharmacy or chemistry. ''I
wanted to design aircraft or ships. But at that time, young people had no
freedom to choose their studies.''
On Wednesday, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that Shimomura,
Martin Chalfie and Roger Y. Tsien of the United States won the Nobel Prize in
chemistry for research on the mysterious green glow of the jellyfish.
On Tuesday, the same academy announced that Nambu was awarded one half of the
physics prize ''for the discovery of the mechanism of spontaneous broken
symmetry in subatomic physics.''
Two Japanese scientist, Makoto Kobayashi, 64, and Toshihide Masukawa, 68,
shared the remaining half of the physics prize ''for the discovery of the
origin of the broken symmetry which predicts the existence of at least three
families of quarks in nature.''
==Kyodo