Professor Makoto Seiji was born in Kamakura City in 1926 and spent his childhood in Hongo, Tokyo.  He graduated from theUniversity of Tokyo, Faculty of Medicine in 1949, and received a Ph.D. degree in 1956.  Dr. Seiji was appointed as a Research Associate in 1957 in the Department of Dermatology at Oregon University in the US where he started his research in melanogenesis.  A year later he went to the Department of Biochemistry at Oxford University to continue biochemical studies of melanin formation.  Upon returning to the USA, Dr. Seiji worked in the laboratories of Department of Dermatology at Harvard Medical School.  His most noticeable contribution was finding distinctive subcellular particles (melanosomes) with tyrosinase activity.

In 1961, Dr. Seiji returned to Japan to assume a position in the teaching faculty at Juntendo University School of Medicine.  He became Professor and Director of the Department of Dermatology at Tokyo Medical and Dental University in 1966, and then Professor and Director of the Department of Dermatology at Tohoku University School of Medicine in 1969.  Dr. Seiji died on October, 1982.

We thank Professor Hachiro Tagami for providing us photos and curriculum vitae of Dr. Seiji, and realize that Dr. Seiji has passed away 16 years ago.  Although many of us, contemporary friends, remember him very well, Dr. Seiji is a person of the past for the eyes of some students in dermatology.

Makoto Seiji was a modern pioneer and hero of Japanese dermatological research.  He lived a brief, rich, scientifically and socially rewarding life.  He, in essence, discovered the melanosome and began the study of its central function in pigmentation of skin.  Further, he spearheaded the development of scientific thinking in Dermatology in Japan.  Many young dermatologists followed his lead.

Seiji died too soon, but his influence continues and expands to this day.  We are privileged to create this special web page in his honor.  We hope all who knew or were influenced by him and his work will respond and contribute to this testimonial.  (Bill Epstein and Kimie Fukuyama)

International Colleagueby Otto Braun-Falco
Teacher and Melanoma Research by Taizo Kato
Friend by K. Fukuyama and Wm. Epstein