Asako Kawamori

Prof. Asako Kawamori is awarded the IES Fellowship 2022 for her pioneering distance measurements in proteins by pulsed dipolar spectroscopy. Prof. Asako Kawamori is an outstanding member of the EPR community. She has not only played a highly influential role in bringing the Japanese EPR community up to modern pulsed EPR, but her pulsed EPR applications in photosynthesis research were at the forefront on the international scale and truly groundbreaking in using coherent pulsed dipolar spectroscopy for distance determination in proteins. Askao Kawamori and coworkers published in 1994, the first distance measurement in a protein, which is based on the coherent dipolar echo envelope modulation. Her early application of the “2+1” sequence and PELDOR/DEER to photosystem II yielded distances between functionally active components in this extremely important protein corroborated only about a decade later by crystallography, and about a decade before DEER got wider attention in protein biophysics. She furthermore fostered EPR as an academic teacher and mentored several colleagues now in academic positions. The International EPR (ESR) Society is proud to honor Professor Asako Kawamori for her distinguished contributions to EPR by naming her as a Fellow of the Society.