ABSTRACT
In the 1950s, when I was a student at Osaka City University Medical School in Japan, I decided to conduct research on lymphocytes because at that time their function was not well described. They were morphologically classified into large, medium, and small lymphocytes. After graduating from the medical school, I served one year in a rotating internship at the Yokosuka U.S. Naval Hospital, Yokosuka, Japan, where I was fortunate to be sponsored by Dr. John Featherstone, Commander and radiologist. When I asked him to help me select the hospital where I could do such research, he kindly wrote many letters of application and delivered them to me, only asking for my signature! I chose a 4-year residency in pathology at Cuyahoga County Metropolitan General Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio, because it promised to give this research opportunity in my second year of residency. One year later I started research on a lymphocyte-stimulating factor from irradiated rats with my peer resident, Dr. Fay B. Weinstein, and we published a preliminary report on the subject in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute [8]. In order to continue research on the lymphocyte function, it was first necessary to isolate them. Since the conventional density gradient method with a short centrifuge tube was found to be inefficient, I conceived the idea of a centrifuge embodying a long coiled tube that underwent planetary motion, subjecting the cells to an Archimedean screw force. The motion of particles through a coiled tube in this device, called a coil planet centrifuge (CPC), was then mathematically analyzed by Fay's husband, Dr. Marvin A. Weinstein, a brilliant physicist.
