OSAKA -- Precision equipment maker Shimadzu Corp. has opened a mass spectroscopy laboratory to commemorate Koichi Tanaka, a Shimadzu researcher and cowinner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, its president said Wednesday.
The Koichi Tanaka Mass Spectrometry Research Laboratory was set up Jan. 1 within a technical center at Shimadzu's headquarters on Kyoto, Hidetoshi Yajima told a news conference.
Tanaka serves as chief of the laboratory, initially staffed with six employees, Yajima said.
"I would like to open a new opportunity for mass spectroscopy technologies through promoting exchanges between people at the laboratory," Tanaka said in a statement.
Shimadzu plans to spend some 200 million yen this year for the laboratory and increase the number of researchers in the fall, Yajima said. The laboratory is expected to get off to a full start this spring or later, because Tanaka is busy writing a report on his Nobel Prize to be submitted by February, the Shimadzu president said.