Takao Hoshino; UC San Francisco Professor, Top Medical Researcher

Takao Hoshino, a professor of neurological surgery in California and Japan and an internationally respected medical researcher, has died. He was 55.

Hoshino died Wednesday at his home in Tokyo of gastrointestinal cancer, according to a statement from UC San Francisco.

Hoshino, who had worked at the San Francisco school since 1968, was one of the founding researchers at UC San Francisco’s Brain Tumor Research Center. There he studied cell cycles to determine when tumor cells might be most vulnerable to treatment.

More recently, Hoshino was working with the drug bromodeoxyuridine, or BUdR. He developed a technique for monitoring brain tumor patients to determine a patient’s prognosis earlier than previously possible.

Hoshino “will be remembered equally for his intellectual curiosity, spirit, elegance, kindness and thoughtful generosity to his colleagues and friends,” Charles B. Wilson, a UC San Francisco professor, said in a statement.

Hoshino also taught in Europe, Russia, South America and Japan. He served on the Council of the Japan Neurosurgical Society and as president of the first neuro-oncology society in Japan.

Hoshino was a native of Tokyo and earned a medical degree from the University of Tokyo.

He is survived by his wife, Kaneko Hoshino, a daughter and a son.

Memorial contributions can be made to the Takao Hoshino Fellowship in Brain Tumor Research at the Brain Tumor Research Center, UCSF, San Francisco, Calif. 94143-0520. The fellowship will support neurosurgeons from Japan who do training at the center.