Career Summary |
1987: M.S. from Tokyo Institute of Technology 1990: Ph.D. from Tokyo Institute of Technology 1987-1992: Assistant professor at Tokyo Institute of Technology 1990-1992: Postdoctoral fellow at University of Texas at Austin. 1992-1997: Group leader of JST Supermolecules Project 1998-2001: Associate professor at Nara Institute of Science and Technology 2001-2003: Group leader of JST Aida Nanospace Project 2004-present: Group leader at National Institute for Materials Science (since 2007, MANA Principal Investigator) 2017: Professor at University of Tokyo
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Educational Activities |
Graduate school: Special Lecture for Materials Science V
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Research Activities |
Our research is based on organic chemistry, supramolecular chemistry, and interfacial science. We freely synthesize functional molecules that are often assembled at appropriate interfaces. For example, synthesized molecular machines are aligned as thin films on water surface and then operated by the hand-like motion of film compression and expansion to catch and release a target molecule. Such molecular machines and insect-like supramolecular assemblies are also applied to highly sensitive mechanical sensors. We have achieved the highly sensitive detection of environmentally toxic gasses and the super-bio discrimination of amino acids and nucleic acid bases. We aim to create functional molecular systems that have never been attempted before.
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Literature
See: http://www.researcherid.com/rid/H-2695-2011
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Other Activities |
Editor-in-Chief of Bulletin of Chemical Society of Japan International Advisory Board of Angewandte Chemie International Edition International Advisory Board of Chemistry ? An Asian Journal International Advisory Board of ChemNanoMat Editorial Board Member of Advanced Materials Editorial Board Member of Chemistry of Materials Editorial Board Member of Langmuir (till 2014) Editorial Board Member of ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces Editorial Board Member of Appl. Mater. Today Editorial Board Member of Journal of Inorganic and Organometallic Polymers and Materials Editorial Board Member of Green Energy Environ. Editorial Board Member of Molecular Catalysis Executive Board Member of Small Methods Advisory Editor of Japanese Journal of Applied Physics Advisory Editor of Applied Physics Express Advisory Board Member of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics Advisory Panel of Nanotechnology (till 2018) Associate Editor of Physical Chemistry Chemical Physics (till2016) Associate Editor of Science and Technology of Advanced Materials Associate Editor of Journal of Oleo Science Section Editor of Chemistry Letters (till 2016) Fellow of The Royal Society of Chemistry Highly Cited Researcher (Thompson Reuter): One of the worldfs most influential researchers Honorary Member of Materials Research Society of India (MRSI) Member of World Economic Forum Expert Network
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Future Plan |
I want to be different from others, be a little strange, be in the minority, behave unexpectedly, and work hard like a superhuman (however, I probably cannot be a smart professor). Last year, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for work on molecular machines that are operated on the basis of sophisticated molecular designs and are currently the top-level nanotechnology. However, we are trying to operate molecular machines by hand so that everyone can use them. Crazy ideas, such as catch and release of a molecule by hand, and nucleic acid base discrimination much better than DNA by hand, can be done with our special interfacial technique.
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Messages to Students |
You do not have to be better than your friends, but you must be different from the others.
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