Yoshifumi Nishimura is an NMR structural biologist in the field of eukaryotic chromatin architecture on active euchromatin related to transcription and inactive heterochromatin. After obtaining a doctoral degree in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of Tokyo, he joined the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tokyo in 1976. In 1989, he moved to Yokohama City University as a Professor of the newly founded Graduate School of Integrated Sciences and in 2001 established a new graduate school in the Tsurumi Campus of Yokohama City University collaborating with the newly founded RIKEN Yokohama Institute. The graduate school was reconstructed as the Graduate School of Medical Life Science in 2013 and he was appointed as the first Dean. He has contributed to the promotion of life science and technology in Yokohama City as well as nationally and internationally for a long period of time through working as a professor at the graduate school of Yokohama City University. In 2019, he moved to Hiroshima University to become the Vice President and Dean of the newly established Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life and retired from the position in 2023. Currently he is working on the NMR platform project from MEXT, and BINDS from AMED at Yokohama City University.

He received the Japanese Spectroscopical Society Award in 2012.