Research Projects

Current Research Projects

There is an online article about the concept of artificial cell project. Click this link.

Biochips for Cell Analysis

We develop microfluidics technologies for single-cell and single-molecule biological/biochemical experiments in order to advance the basic sciece in molecular/cell biology as well as the clinical and diagnostic tests.

Artificial Cell Model

Cell membrane is an ordered aggregate of lipid molecules forming an extremely thin bilayer membrane (approx. 5nm). Artifiially formed lipid membrane is called liposome, which is studied and utilized as a model cell membrane. It is very soft, so that it can fluctuate, readily deform, and even mimic the phenomea resembling real cells with the energy input as small as thermal fluctuation. We seek the utilization of aritificial cell models for the future biotechnologies.

Engineered Self-Assembly

Industral products are made by sequential assembly process performed by a worker or a robot. In turn, things in nature including living organisms are spontaneously formed through the process called self-assembly. We learn the strategy embloyed by the self-assembly in nature, and try to apply for the inductrial processes.

How to make microfluidic devices