Obituary: Hiromi Gunshin, assistant professor of Nutrition

Hiromi Gunshin, assistant professor of Nutrition, died May 12.

Born in Japan, she obtained her B.S. in applied biochemistry in 1983 from Hiroshima University, where she also completed an M.S. in nutritional biochemistry in 1985.

After completing her Ph.D. in nutritional biochemistry from the University of Tokyo, she joined the faculty of the School of Medicine of Ryuku Universiity in Okinawa as an assistant professor and then served as associate professor in the department of bioresource engineering at Yamagata University.

In 1995, she joined the renal division at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston as a research fellow. Her work also included research at Children's Hospital in Boston.

She was known in the field for her advances in understanding iron absorption, in particular for cloning the first known mammalian iron transport gene, DMT1: the divalent metal transporter.

Using different strains of "knockout mice" that lack a functional DMT1 gene in specific tissues, she was investigating the role of the DMT1 gene in various pathologic states, including hereditary hemochromatosis.

Recruited to the Nutrition Department in 2006 under the Amherst 250 plan, she had been awarded three external research grants to fund her research.

She received many awards for her pioneering work, and she was an active member of the International BioIron Society and the American Gastroenterological Association.

May 30, 2008.

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