Abstract
A year ago, we began an exciting new development by publishing a feature in irregular order entitled The Discoverers of Bacterial Endotoxin, comprising various articles on outstanding endotoxin researchers and their contributions to the field. In this issue, we continue this feature with an article by Kazuyoshi Kawahara (College of Science and Engineering, Kanto Gakuin University, Yokohama, Japan) on the scientific contributions of three generations of professors, Tetsuo Shiba, Shoichi Kusumoto, and Koichi Fukase, at the Laboratory of Natural Product Chemistry at Osaka University. In collaboration with other Japanese and German researchers, their excellent synthetic chemistry clarified the role of lipid A in the immunological activities of endotoxin. The highly important outcome of this research was the precise chemical structure of toxic lipid A and the answer to the long-lasting question on the endotoxic principle.