Hirosi Kuriyama made immense contributions to our knowledge of smooth muscle, his lifelong research interest. He graduated in medicine from Fukuoka in 1951. After starting his career in Japanese physiology departments, he worked with Csapo in New York, using microelectrodes to record electrical activity in uterine smooth muscle. He subsequently completed an Oxford DPhil under Edith Bulbring, publishing work on the electrophysiology of guinea pig taenia coli. In 1964, he returned to Kyushu University and was later appointed head of the Department of Pharmacology, Faculty of Medicine (1976). Between 1970 and 1990, his group produced the majority of electrophysiological and physiological studies on smooth muscle which were published at the time. Many of his co-workers and assistants became heads of department in Japanese universities. He retired from Kyushu in 1992, worked briefly with Chugai Pharmaceutical Company, then joined Seinan Jo Gakuin University for nine years, eventually becoming President there.

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