Planning For Bigger Things By Pursuing Nano-level Structures

Life Science-related Efforts in Engineering

Recent decades have seen major advances related to life science, especially for the building block of life: cells (encompassing induced pluripotent stem aka iPS ones and otherwise), proteins, amino acids... . The respected magazine “Science” for example cited as one of the Top Ten science stories of 2016 the synthesis of a “minimal” bacterial genome, that is, the assembling a set of genes in full for an organism using the minimum amount required.
Yet what is an organism, a living thing? This is also a question being delved into by researchers around the world. But indeed there still remains many mysteries to be solved, such as that of the virus, which defies the definition of a living organism, not to mention things like the mechanism of certain proteins in triggering ailments like bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE). Meanwhile there has been links made from the organic to inorganic materials thanks to furtherance of research activities at the nanometer level. Actually, considering that the design of micromachines was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2016, possibilities have been opened up ahead of “cyborg-like cells” being realized in the not-too-distant future.
In line with such moves, we would like to place the spotlight on two researchers in the engineering field pursuing activities related to this leading-edge sector, Prof. Mitsuo Umetsu with the Department of Biomedical Engineering, Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University and Prof. Hitoshi Shiku, working now at the Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University.