Charles Fumito Taketa, PhD 

Charles Fumito Taketa was born March 10, 1926, in Waimea on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. He received his A.B. at Washington University in 1950 and his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1957.

In 1958, he was appointed to the faculty of Marquette University School of Medicine as an instructor in Biochemistry and later promoted to Assistant Professor. As the school became the Medical College of Wisconsin in 1967, he continued his ascent to Associate Professor, then to Professor in 1973. From 1980 to 1982, he was acting Chair, and from 1982 he was Vice Chair of the Department of Biochemistry. His research career, which was devoted to understanding the chemical basis of hemoglobin function and later the toxicity of organotin compounds, was supported by the National Institutes of Health, the Wisconsin Heart Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and the Midwest Children's Cancer Center. He was a Fogarty Scholar at Kings College, London from 1975 to 1976, and in 1987 he received the Medical College's Distinguished Service Award. He died on June 1, 1990.

Friends and family of Charles Fumito Taketa established the Charles Fumito Taketa Memorial Fund at the Medical College of Wisconsin to promote graduate education in Biochemistry.