Born in 1874 to a farming family in Haibara District, Shizuoka. He studied agricultural chemistry at the College of Agriculture of Tokyo Imperial University, then went to Berlin University in Germany to study under Emil Fischer. Returning in 1906, he became a professor at Tokyo Imperial University. He tackled the causes of beriberi (vitamin B1 deficiency), a grave problem in Japan at the time, and in 1910 succeeded in extracting the active component from rice bran, naming it 'aberic acid' and later renaming it 'oryzanin.' It was the world's first vitamin discovery. But because he published his paper in Japanese, in 1911 Casimir Funk of Poland announced a similar finding in English as 'vitamine,' taking priority from him. He went on to contribute to the advance of agricultural chemistry, served as vice director of Riken, and developed synthetic sake, among other work. He died in 1943 at 69.

A down-to-earth researcher with the sincerity and tenacity one might expect of a farmer's son. Oriented toward practical science, he put the solution of domestic problems first and confronted head-on the national disease of beriberi. Even his decision to publish in Japanese came from thinking of Japanese farmers and doctors as his primary readers.

The discovery of oryzanin was a landmark that brought the very concept of vitamins into being. The tragedy of losing priority to Funk despite being first has been handed down as a lesson that Japanese scientists need to communicate their work more actively on the international stage. Beriberi was a Japanese national disease through the early twentieth century, inflicting suffering on many soldiers in the navy and the army. With the discovery of oryzanin and subsequent improvements in diet, beriberi declined dramatically, and Umetarō can be said to have indirectly saved millions of lives. A memorial facility stands in Makinohara, Shizuoka.