In a person suffering from allergies, though, too much IgE stimulates an extra release of histamine, a compound that causes dilation of capillaries. That, in turn, results in excessive sneezing and other symptoms, including some that could be more serious.
Dr. Ishizaka’s team published its findings in 1966.
In 1969, the Ishizaki team and another headed by S.G.O Johansson and Hans Bennich in Uppsala, Sweden, collaborated in publishing similar findings.
For nearly two decades, beginning in 1970, the Ishizakis conducted research at Johns Hopkins University, where Dr. Ishizaka was an assistant professor of biology, medicine and microbiology. In 1989, he was named scientific director of the then-new La Jolla Institute; he became its president in 1991.
He retired in 1996 and returned to Japan, settling in Yamagata, his wife’s hometown, in northern Japan.
Dr. Ishizaka, who was known as Kimi, was born on Dec. 3, 1925, in Tokyo to Koki and Kiku Ishizaka. His father was a career soldier who retired in 1933 as a lieutenant general.
Kimishige Ishizaka intended to become a physician but was captivated by immunology while taking a summer course in college. He received his medical degree in 1948 from the University of Tokyo, where he was also awarded a doctorate.
In 1949, he married Teruko Matsuura, who survives him along with their son, Yutaka Ishizaka.
From 1953 to 1962, Dr. Ishizaka headed the immunoserology division of the serology department at the Japanese National Institute of Health, spending part of that time as a research fellow at the California Institute of Technology. In 1962, he and his wife were recruited to study human allergies at the research institute in Denver.
