Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology

Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences

Chiba University

Magnolia used as crude drug

For sustainable utilization of plant resources for future

We, mankind has used plants in various ways since prehistoric times. We still use plants as medicines as well as clothing, food and housing. Plants assimilate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by photosynthesis to produce huge amounts of organic compounds. They have various chemical properties with various functions.

The importance of plants as a pharmaceutical resource lies in their chemical diversity. We are conducting research to elucidate the mechanism of plant material production at the molecular level and to clarify the molecular basis of its chemical diversity. In the future, we aim to apply the knowledge gained from the research to rational and sustainable use of plant resources.

Biological complexity can be clarify from the basis of genome, transcriptome, proteome and metabolome

We are interested in how plants produce a wide variety of compounds, how they work and how complex they are. Since plants and other organisms live on the basis of genetic information written in the genome, the complex mechanism can be examined using the genomic information as a clue. In addition to the genome, integrated analysis of each layer of the information expression process (transcriptome, proteome, and metabolome) can give an overview of the mechanism of substance production in plants.

History of our laboratory

The predecessor of our laboratory is the Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Chiba University, an university established in 1949. Professor Joju Haginiwa has been in charge of the laboratory since 1954, and Professor Isamu Murakoshi has been in charge of the laboratory since 1982. In 1994, Laboratory of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology was established at the Medicinal Resources Education and Research Center attached to the Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, and the research space, education, and research of the former Pharmacognosy Laboratory were inherited. The following year, in 1995, Professor Kazuki Saito promoted and started research on molecular biology and omics-science of medicinal plants. In 2021, Mami Yamazaki became a professor and the current system goes on. Although it has become rare these days, it is one of the laboratories that inherits the long-standing flow of scientific research.

In this way, our laboratory started from pharmacognosy, which is classified as a chemical part in pharmacy, but now we are studying plants, which are the raw materials of crude drugs, as living organisms, and the molecular basis of phenomena in the life of plants as substance producers.