Class Subjects Major of Advanced Nanosciences and Biosciences

With a background of advances in genome and post-genome researches and the boom in nanoscience, the achievements of researches in the life science area based on genome and post-genome information and the advances in drug discovery science in collaboration with molecular design technologies have been important social requests propelling the creation of new innovative drugs and bioactive substances. In response to the global trend of sophistication in the medical field, it is essential to integrate leading researches including nanotechnology and biotechnology in an interdisciplinary manner and to develop human resources who can collaborate among industry, academia, and government more than ever before. Moreover, it is also an urgent mission for universities of the new era to develop human resources who can play a leadership role in the new integrated area with extremely high sociality. In addition, expression of homeostatic processes, diseases, and pharmacological activities in living organisms is caused by the complicated association of structures, physical properties, and reaction mechanisms of molecular assemblies and polymers in the body at the nano scale. Therefore, molecular researches are essential in the nano-scale area to resolve physiological actions and to develop drugs with effective pharmacological effects. Thus, in this department, we provide education and research guidance with the aim of cultivating leading researchers who can play a major role in the nanobiotechnology science area, which is connected with the medical/pharmacological fields and life science/material science fields mainly for the following subjects that will certainly be needed in the future: establishment of a highly functional nano-bio interface and the development of its new functions, development of new functions of nano-scale molecular assemblies and polymers, which make up tissues of living organisms, reasonable synthesis of natural and artificial bioactive substances, de novo synthesis of functional π-conjugated organic compounds, development of new functions expressed in the nano-scale area, resolution of physiological activity, the action mechanism of enzymes/catalysts in which trace metal ions are involved, the development of new activities, and chemical biology.

Educational area	Responsible teacher	Research contents
Synthetic Medical Chemistry	Professor TOYOOKA Naoki  Profile	Drug discovery researches oriented to the development of therapeutic medicines for central neurological diseases Drug discovery researches oriented to the development of new therapeutic medicines for diabetes mellitus and its complications Drug discovery researches oriented to the development of new therapeutic medicines for Alzheimer’s disease Drug discovery researches oriented to the development of anticancer drugs
Synthetic Medical Chemistry	Professor ABE Hitoshi  Profile	Conduct educational research on creation of functional molecules such as biologically active compounds, based on organic synthesis of natural molecules which possess complex structure.
Nano-size Functional Molecule Design Chemistry	Professor AIZAWA Sen-ichi  Profile	We design new metal complexes, estimating their functions such as physiological/pharmacological and catalytic activities. In the next stage, we make a plan for the synthesis and put it into practice. The structure and reactivity of the synthesized metal complexes will be determined using various analysis methods. The new functions of the obtained metal complexes will be validated by resolving their reaction mechanisms.
Nano-size Functional Molecule Design Chemistry	Professor TOHDA Koji  Profile	Conduct the educational research on the design and synthesis of highly functional optical sensor molecules for the sensing of metabolites such as glucose or lactate and ions such as potassium or sodium in the human body, and their application in novel optical sensing system for minimally invasive monitoring of vital ions and metabolites as a tool of biochemical and clinical analyses.
Nano-size Functional Molecule Design Chemistry	Professor IKAWA Yoshiya  Profile	Elucidation of the molecular bases of naturally occurring RNAs acting as enzymes and receptors.Generation of novel structures and functions of artificial RNA molecules and their applications.
Nano-Biomolecular Design Chemistry	Associate Professor ISHIYAMA Tatuya  Profile	Biomolecular structure and its dynamics are analyzed by computer simulation technique based on interaction models among biomolecules according to the principles of quantum chemistry. Static and dynamic variables of biomolecules are calculated from molecular trajectories obtained by molecular simulations based on theory of statistical mechanics, and thereby biomolecular phenomena are solved in a microscopic point of view.
Nano-Biomolecular Design Chemistry	Associate Professor NAKAJI Tadashi	We carry out the design and synthesis of base chemicals for biomedical materials and the construction of novel biomaterials using synthetic polymers or biopolymers. In addition, we aim for the establishment of concept for biomaterial designing. And then we demonstrate the effectiveness of novel materials with the in vitro and in vivo experiments using cells, tissues and animals.