Koichi Tanaka

Koichi Tanaka (たなか こういち) was born on March 8, 1959, in Toyama, Toyama, Japan. He is a chemist and engineer with Japanese nationality. Tanaka was educated at Tohoku University and is currently based in Japan.

Tanaka is best known for his development of soft laser desorption, a novel method for mass spectrometric analyses of biological macromolecules. This achievement earned him the 2002 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.