Constance Tom Noguchi

In 1991, Noguchi isolated and cloned the human erythropoietin receptor gene. Erythropoietin is an essential hormone for red blood cell production that is produced by the kidneys and binds to the erythropoietin receptor (EpoR). When a person's erythrocyte count is higher than the normal range for their sex, the disease state erythrocytosis can occur. Erythrocytosis has been linked to a variety of EpoR gene mutations.

Noguchi joined the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in 1975, as a fellow with Alan N. Schechter at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK). Noguchi became a research physicist at NIDDK in 1985. She became Chief of the Molecular Cell Biology Section of NIDDK in 1994, and Dean of the NIH's Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (FAES) in 1999.

Noguchi studied in mathematics and physics at the University of California, Berkeley, receiving her B.Sc. in 1970. She then attended George Washington University where she received her PhD in theoretical nuclear physics in 1975.

Constance Tom Noguchi (born December 8, 1948) is a research physicist, Chief of the Molecular Cell Biology Section, and Dean of the Foundation for Advanced Education in the Sciences (FAES) Graduate School at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). Noguchi studies the underlying genetics, metabolism, and treatment of sickle cell disease and of erythropoietin and its effects on metabolism.

Constance Tom was born on December 8, 1948, in Guangzhou (Canton, China) to James Tom and Irene Cheung. Her father was a Chinese-American, and the family soon returned to the United States. Constance Tom grew up in San Francisco, California and married Philip David Noguchi in 1969.