Masui and his students, working with basic equipment and modest funding, succeeded in isolating materials that control the process of cell division in all organisms. Masui credits some of his success to an advisor at Yale University, who recommended he concentrate on low-budget research techniques that would allow him to perform good work despite limited funds. Also at the U of T's Zoology Department, Masui invented many original techniques to assist his studies of cell division: a quantitative method for microinjection in 1971; microextraction in 1976; cell-free "in-vitro" mitosis in 1983. Masui's microinjection technique enabled him to directly transfer into cells controlled amounts of Maturity Promoting Factor (MPF) that initiates cell division and the Cytostatic factor that stops it, confirming their role in cell growth. Recipient 1990 Manning Principal Award, for innovation leading to "one of the most important biomedical science discoveries of the last 50 years."
Sources: The Manning Awards; NSERC
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