QUESTION: What makes a person a great scientist? ANSWER: The ability to perform a kaigen in real life. A kaigen, “eye-opening,” is what the Emperor of Japan did for the enormous bronze Buddha at Nara in 752 AD.

   The eyes of that Buddha, which is still there, are each 3 ft. 4 in. in diameter (1.02 m.).

   Housed in a temple that is the largest wooden building in the world, the statue itself is 53 ft. high (16.15 m.)—because he is sitting down. Gathering the 551 tons of bronze required for the casting of this statue is said to have left the country nearly bankrupt. But everyone gladly participated in its creation because all believed that the statue would have great beneficial power for the whole nation, as soon as its eyes were “opened” by being painted on the bronze. That ritual was held in the year 752. To the end of a large paintbrush was tied a rope, and to the far end of the rope were tied dozens of strings. By each holding a string, the Emperor and his Empress and all the highest court officials could physically participate in the eye-opening. The paint is long gone. But you can still see that rope with all its strings, now 1,258 years old, in the temple of the statue.[Endnote 1]

   The kaigen was “based on the ancient understanding that the eye is the last organ to become active—that the fetus employs all its senses except its eyes.”[2] So with that ritual, a statue was believed to come to life, to be born, as its eyes were finally opened.

   That is exactly what a great scientist does: he, or she, opens our eyes, in a way that has great beneficial power for the whole world.

   And that is exactly why Akira Endo is a great scientist: he opened all our eyes to a new wonder of science.

   Others have ranked him great for other reasons. For example, in 2008 Dr. Endo was named one of the 20th Century’s 10 scientists who were greater than Albert Einstein, because of the millions of lives that have been saved by Dr. Endo’s discovery.[3] However, while nothing is more important than the sanctity of life, the saving of lives is not science, but the application of science. It is the firm belief of the authors of this book, The Science Club, that the true essence of science—the soul of Science—is the ability to open other people’s eyes; for, the “ripple effect” of awareness is what subsequently leads those other people to the specific applications that then make the world a better place for everyone, sometimes literally saving countless millions of lives.  

    Dr. Endo’s discovery, which revolutionized the treatment of heart disease, occurred because his own eyes were wide-open to the wonders of fungi. Fungi (molds, yeasts, mushrooms) have a poor reputation in the minds of many people. They have little ornamental value, and in fact are typically viewed as pests. Thus the Buddhist proverb in Japan, “Fuji seppo suru hoshi wa, hiratake ni umaru” (“The priest who preaches false doctrine shall be reborn as a fungus”). However, Science does not search for beauty. That is the interest of Art (specifically Aesthetics). Rather, Science searches for truth. And truth is found when a scientist’s eyes, being open, see accurately. Studying fungi, Dr. Endo accurately saw that a certain enzyme could control cholesterol levels.[4]

   His fascination with fungi had begun in childhood, as he grew up on a small farm during the Great Depression.[5] In college, he studied Agricultural Chemistry, and as a young scientist (age 24) he began working as a biochemist at Sankyo.[6] The same year that the authors of this book, themselves still younger scientists, published the first issue of their scientific journal (The SSS Bulletin[7]): that year, 1966, Dr. Endo received the prestigious Young Investigator Award, for his work in Agricultural Chemistry. It was five years later (1971) that he began his research on that enzyme, which would lead to statins, the class of drugs that lower cholesterol in people.

   Statins are “drugs with remarkable LDL-cholesterol-lowering properties that have revolutionized the prevention and treatment of coronary heart disease,” according to the Lasker Foundation, which in 2008 awarded Endo the Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (which is often called “America’s Nobel”).[8]

   While Dr. Endo had made a world-altering discovery, the world’s eyes were slow to open to it. Laboratory tests using rats and dogs were not encouraging to those people interested in the commercial potential of statins—in Philadelphia in 1977, there was disappointingly little interest in Dr. Endo’s presentation at the 6th International Symposium on Drugs Affecting Lipid Metabolism. En route back to Tokyo, he stopped in Dallas and gave a talk on September 2—and as Michael S. Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein remember, “Almost no one came to hear his talk.”[9]

   Brown and Goldstein, themselves great scientists, were in fact among the very first people whose eyes were opened by Endo’s discovery. For their own subsequent research, Goldstein and Brown shared the 1985 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine. In their recent tribute to him, they stated, “None of this would have happened if Endo had not conducted his relentless search for a fungal product that would inhibit cholesterol synthesis . . . The millions of people whose lives will be extended through statin therapy owe it all to Akira Endo and his search through fungal extracts.”[10]

   But it is more fundamentally true that none of that would have happened if Dr. Endo had not opened the eyes of other great scientists. In that sense, the most fundamental or basic activity of the entire field—the soul of all Science—is one scientist helping to open the eyes of others, most especially young scientists.

   There is a Japanese proverb that says, “Hotoke tsukutte tamashii iredzu,” or “Making a Buddha without putting in a soul.” That proverb is used when a person starts a work but then leaves the most essential part unfinished. If we undertake to build a better world but neglect the most essential part, then we will have made a world without a soul. The most essential part of Science, all the authors of this book believe absolutely, is opening the eyes of young people to the wonders of Science—as a truly great scientist, Akira Endo, does so well on the following pages.

SOURCE: In The Science Club, to be published later this year by The Butrous Foundation, this introduction, “Akira Endo: A Great Scientist,” is followed on page 23 by his chapter, “My Life as a Scientist,” in the original Japanese, which is followed on page 31 by the English translation.

ENDNOTES

   [1] Shomu, the 45th Emperor, in 743 commissioned the creation of the Nara Buddha whose eyes were opened 9 years later. Nara was the capital of Japan from 710 to 794.

   [2] Paul Soderberg, “George Carlson: Connected to the Intensity of Life,” Plein Air magazine (September 2005). A similar sacred ritual, called nayanonmilana or “eye-unclosing,” was practiced by sculptors in Ancient India.

   [3] Billy Woodward, Scientists Greater Than Einstein: The Biggest Lifesavers of the Twentieth Century, Fresno, Calif.: Linden Publishing (2008).

   [4] The enzyme, HMG-CoA reductase (3-hydroxy-3-methyl-glutaryl-CoA reductase) controls the rate at which cholesterol is metabolized.

   [5] Akira Endo was born in Northern Japan on 14 November 1933.

   [6] Dr. Endo worked at the Sankyo Co. (Daiichi Sankyo Co., Ltd.) in Tokyo from 1957 to 1978.

   [7] The first issue of the Bulletin of the Student Science Society—vol. 1, no. 1&2—was published at the International School Bangkok in April of 1966.

   [8] LDL: low-density lipoprotein.

   [9] Michael S. Brown and Joseph L. Goldstein, “A Tribute to Akira Endo, Discoverer of a ‘Penicillin’ for Cholesterol,” Atherosclerosis Supplements, vol. 5, issue 3  (October 2004), p. 13.

   [10] Brown and Goldstein, pp. 15-16.