Editorial

Sixtieth Birthday of Hiroyuki Hatano

On September 27, 1984, Hiroyuki Hatano, Professor at the Chemistry Department of Kyoto University and recognized as the leader of Japanese liquid chromatographers, celebrated his sixtieth birthday.

Hiroyuki Hatano was born in 1924, in Hyogo Prefecture, Japan. He studied at Kyoto University receiving his B.S. in chemistry in 1947 and D. Sc. in 1958. Immediately after graduation in 1947, he joined Kyoto University as a research assistant and, except for a three-year stay at Kobe University (1955-1958), has been associated with this university during his whole professional career. Since 1953 he has been a Professor at Kyoto University. He is also director of the Instrumental Analysis Research Institute at the University. He has been a visiting professor at a number of universities such as Cornell University, U.S.A. (1963-1964), the Eidgen6ssische Technische Hochschule in Ztirich, Switzerland (1974), the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, MD, U.S.A. (1974), Holt Radium Institute in the United Kingdom (1974-1975), the Centre d'Etudes Nucl6aires de Grenoble et de Saclay, France (1980), and the University of Waterloo, Canada (1975 and 1981).

In his professional career, Dr. Hatano has dealt with a wide variety of fields. He started in biochemistry, but soon switched to organic radiation chemistry and analytical chemistry. He has been teaching these subjects at Kyoto University for many years. His real love, however, has been liquid chromatography.

Dr. Hatano is one of the real pioneers in high-performance liquid chromatography, one of the most popular and powerful analytical techniques used today. In 1961 he developed the first Japanese automated liquid chromato- graph equipped with a UV-VIS spectrometric detector which became the basis of a number of commercial liquid chromatographs and amino acids analyzers introduced in the 1960's. His research interests include theory, instrumen- tation and applications of liquid chromatography, and has made significant contributions in all these fields. In the theory of liquid chromatography, he has focused on re- versed-phase retention mechanisms and has presented his investigations at several meetings and publications. He was involved in the development of interfacing a liquid chro- matograph to other spectrometers such as electron spin resonance spectrometer (ESR) and mass spectrometer (MS). Dr. Hatano has made a significant contribution in the development of ion chromatography, particularly in the use of small-bore fused-silica capillaries as the separa- tion column, which opened up new possibilities in the recent, highly popular microbore liquid chromatography.

In addition to these scientific achievements, Dr. Hatano's most significant contribution to the advancement of liquid chromatography has been the organization of the Japanese Research Group on Liquid Chromatography. The Group has brought together the very best people in the liquid chromatographic fields. The meetings organized by the Group are held twice every year in Kyoto, Japan's most famous beautiful old capital. The summer session represents a seminar by highly respected Japanese and foreign lecturers while the winter session is organized as a symposium on liquid chromatography. Through these meetings, Dr. Hatano hastened the advancement of Japanese liquid chromatography. Naturally, Dr. Hatano also contributes internationally in the liquid chromatographic field. He was the Japanese Coordinator of the 1978 U.S.-Japan Joint Seminar on Liquid Chromatography held in Colorado and one of the members of the Organizing Committee of the 18th International Symposia on Advances in Chromato- graphy held in Tokyo in 1982 and of the 8th International Symposium on Column Liquid Chromatography held in New York City in this year.

Professor Hatano is the author or coauthor of nearly 350 publications on chromatography, spectroscopy, radiation chemistry, analytical instrumentation, and the application of these techniques to the investigation of proteins, enzymes, nucleotides and nucleic acids. In addition, he recognized the importance of making the results of others available

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Editorial (cont'd)

to the scientific community. In order to achieve this inten- tion, he has been published the LC data bases as several handbooks (now 25 volumes). The importance and useful- ness of these data bases has become increasing apparent. He is the author of 15 books on liquid chromatography, automated amino acids analysis, and radiation chemistry. He is the chairman of the group organizing data storage and evaluation activities in high-performance liquid chro- matography sponsored by the Japan Society for the Promo- tion of Sciences and the Promotion Bureau of the Science and Technology Agency of Japan. As an outstanding scientist, he is a member of the Science Council of Japan. He is also active on the editorial board of Analytical Letters.

Leslie S. Ettre

Dr. Hatano's contributions to liquid chromatograph! have been recognized by the Award of the Japan Socie~. for Analytical Chemistry in 1975 and the Internati0n~ M.S. Twett Chromatography Award in 1982. Besides the physical awards, the most important award one can receiv~ is the recognition and respect of his peers and Dr. Hatanr is universally recognized for his important contribution to the fields of liquid chromatography.

On the occasion of his sixtieth birthday, we wish Profess0: Hatano continuing success and many more producti~ years.

Kiyokatsu Jinno

Chromatographia Vol. 18, No. 9, August 198: