Our laboratory is conducting three major research projects:
Development of ultra-high-resolution and ultra-multiplex imaging technologies and their applications in various brain and cancer research.
Synthesis of new materials using living organisms as templates and their various applications.
Development of hydrogel patterning and process technologies, and their applications in soft robotics and other fields.
1. Development of ultra-high-resolution and ultra-multiplex imaging technologies and their applications in various brain and cancer research
In recent years, the most significant trends in cancer and brain research can be summarized as ultra-high resolution and spatial omics.
Ultra-high resolution refers to the ability to observe nanoscale structures within tissues in great detail, down to tens of nanometers.
Spatial omics builds upon traditional genomics, transcriptomics, and proteomics, which typically require tissue homogenization. Instead, spatial omics allows for these analyses to be conducted at the single-cell level while preserving the tissue’s spatial integrity.
In 2022, our laboratory developed PICASSO, a technology capable of simultaneously visualizing dozens of proteins within a single sample. Furthermore, leveraging expansion microscopy, a technique that physically expands tissue samples to enable ultra-high-resolution imaging of proteins and mRNA, we became the first in the world to successfully expand an entire vertebrate organism with bones intact.
Expansion microscopy imaging of the whole mouse embryos (ACS Nano, 2025)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.4c14791
Ultra-multiplexed imaging technique, PICASSO (Nat. Comm., 2022)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-30168-z
Expansion microscopy imaging of actin (ACS Nano, 2020)
https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsnano.0c04915
Iterative expansion microscopy (Nat. Methods, 2017)
https://www.nature.com/articles/nmeth.4261
2. Synthesis of new materials using living organisms as templates and their various applications.
The internal structure of living organisms is far more complex than any man-made material. Within organisms, thousands to tens of thousands of proteins are intricately assembled, each expressed in different locations and quantities depending on their specific functions. If we could synthesize materials that mimic these biological structures, we could develop materials with significantly higher functionality compared to those currently synthesized by humans.
In 2022, our research team became the first in the world to develop a technology that enables material synthesis using specific proteins from within eukaryotic cells as templates. Moving forward, we plan to leverage our advanced imaging technologies to analyze various biological structures, identify those with optimal architectures for specific applications, and use them as templates for material synthesis. Additionally, we aim to explore the application of these newly synthesized materials in diverse fields such as catalysis, batteries, water electrolysis, and sensors.
Highly Tunable, Nanomaterial-Functionalized Structural Templating of Intracellular Protein Structures Within Biological Species (Adv. Sci., 2025)
https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202406492
Metallization of targeted protein assemblies in cell-derived extracellular matrix by antibody-guided biotemplating (Adv. Sci., 2023)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/advs.202302830
Protein-templated material synthesis (Adv. Mater., 2022)
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/adma.202200408
In-situ silver growth from biological structures (Nanoscale Adv., 2022)
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/na/d2na00449f
3. Development of hydrogel patterning and process technologies, and their applications in soft robotics and other fields.
Hydrogels are crosslinked hydrophilic polymer networks, and the best example of a hydrogel is a living organism itself. Living organisms consist of complex assemblies of hydrophilic polymers—such as proteins, nucleic acids, and carbohydrates—each with diverse functions. Our research focuses on synthesizing functional hydrogels, assembling them, and developing hydrogel-based devices with novel properties beyond those of conventional hydrogels.
For instance, the human hand is entirely composed of hydrogel-based biological materials yet possesses a remarkable load capacity. This is because of its sophisticated three-dimensional assembly of rigid bones, ligaments that tightly hold the bones together, and muscles that enable movement. Inspired by this intricate natural structure, our lab is working on developing soft robotics that mimic biological hydrogel architectures. Additionally, we are researching advanced hydrogel patterning and three-dimensional fabrication techniques to create smaller and more refined hydrogel-based structures.
Rewritable Wavelength-Selective Hydrogel Actuators Grafted with Fluorophores (Mater. Horiz., 2025)
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2025/mh/d4mh01294a
Precise and selective macroscopic assembly of a dual lock-and-key structured hydrogel (Mater. Horiz., 2024)
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/mh/d3mh00995e
All-hydrogel grippers with a high load capacity (Mater. Horizons, 2023)
https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/articlelanding/2023/mh/d2mh01309f