Koichi Ichikawa studied veterinary pathology and received a veterinary medicine doctorate. Born in Amabiki-mura, Ibaraki Prefecture, he graduated from an agricultural science preparatory course at the Tohoku Imperial University in 1910. Additionally, he graduated from a course in animal husbandry at the same university in 1913 and became a lecturer in animal husbandry at the Hokkaido Imperial University in 1919. He became an assistant professor at the same university in 1920 and a full professor there in 1925, a position he held until he resigned in 1946 due to ill health. He succeeded in artificially creating cancer by applying coal tar to rabbits’ ears. In 1919, he received the Japan Academy Prize alongside his old teacher Katsusaburo Yamagiwa of Tokyo Imperial University. While he did not receive a Nobel Prize on account of the international situation, Yamagiwa/Ichikawa tar cancer is recognised as a major achievement in the history of cancer research.
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