Research Director

Yuzuru Takamura

School of Materials Science/Center for Single Nanoscale Innovative Devices (Excellent Core),
Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology
Professor
website

Outline

This research will build the technical base for the comprehensive analysis of biomolecules in single cells on 2D plane, such as tissue surfaces, tissue sections, and cultured cell networks, in keeping with the positional information of the cells on the plane, by developing the array of cell-analysis-units constructed with micro actuators. The cell-analysis-units will have the function to monitor the each living cell on the unit, to know the type of cell, its function, and its stage in disease in long term. The units will also be able to extract the contents of cells, from selected cells or from all cells on the units in any timing on demand, to hand out the contents to a next generation sequencer or a mass spectrometer for further analysis at the single molecule level with positional information. This research is expected to contribute not only to the study for various intractable diseases, such as the cancer and arteriosclerosis, but also for treatments and drug discovery.