Yamamoto was born in
Des Moines, Iowa, and graduated from
Iowa State University with a B.S. in biochemistry and biophysics in 1968. At Iowa State, he was a member of the
Delta Upsilon fraternity. He earned his doctorate in biochemical sciences at
Princeton University in 1973 in the laboratory of
Bruce Alberts for his research on the estrogen receptor (ER). He then began his research on the glucocorticoid receptor as a postdoctoral fellow with Gordon Tomkins at UCSF. In 1976, Yamamoto joined the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at the
University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) as an assistant professor. In 1978, he became an associate professor and in 1983 a full professor. He also took on the role of vice-chair of the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF in 1985. In 2015, Yamamoto became UCSF's first vice chancellor of science policy and strategy. He was previously the vice chancellor of research for the university, and the vice dean, research, within the School of Medicine. Yamamoto was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1989, elected to the
National Academy of Sciences in 1989, and to the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2002. Yamamoto ran a research lab focused on understanding signaling and transcriptional control by nuclear receptors and continues to teach graduate courses in molecular biology and biochemistry at UCSF. == Political career ==