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Apr.21, 2020

Many people think of the new coronavirus as “a little heavy flu,” but it’s a mistake. In fact, it is the same coronavirus as the “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus” with a fatality rate of 9.6%, and the genes are also very similar. How long? Interview with Dr. So Nakagawa, Ph.D., who is a postdoctoral researcher at the National Institute of Genetics, a visiting researcher at Harvard University, and a lecturer at the Molecular Life Sciences School of Medicine, Tokai University.

“The similarity of the genes that make up each virus is about 70 to 90%. However, the new coronavirus is not an evolution of the SARS virus. They are like relatives. One of the genes with the lowest similarity compared to each other is the S gene. ” The spike protein (S protein) forming the viral protrusion has the role of binding to the receptor on the surface of the infected cell and mediating the fusion of the viral outer membrane and cell membrane. The S gene has a design drawing that determines the character of the S protein and creates it faithfully.

(Continued to the Daily Gendai official website)

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Picture is cited from Tokai website 2020

A research group led by Associate Professor Tsuneyuki Tomita of the Faculty of Science, Faculty of Science has recently won the 2019 Joint Research Award for Materials and Devices at the Joint Research Center for Materials and Devices. At the 9th Joint Research Center for Materials and Devices Research Activity Report and the Dynamic Alliance Achievement Report for 2018-Evolving Joint Research Center Organization held at Senri Life Science Center in Osaka on July 1. The award ceremony was held, and Prof. Tomita was present.

Associate Professor Yosuke Okamura (Micro / Nano Research and Development Center) and Researcher Hiroshi Zhang of the Department of Applied Chemistry (Faculty of Engineering) have recently used biological optical microscopes to make biological samples deeper and deeper using a common optical microscope using water-repellent nanosheets. We have developed a new technology that can observe up to. A paper summarizing the results was published in the online journal “PLOS ONE” on science on January 10.

[Title] Nanosheet wrapping-assisted coverslip-free imaging for looking deeper into a tissue at high resolution

[Paper URL] https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0227650

Tokai University Micro / Nano Research and Development Center Researcher Interview

“Fascinated by the physical universality of soft materials and system-dependent diversity”

Rio Kita.  Professor, Department of Physics, Faculty of Science, Micro and Nano Research and Development Center, Tokai University

(Published on Feb 2020, interviewed by Takahashi and Mori)

―Please tell us about your research.

If I roughly divide my research,

① Study on phase equilibrium and phase separation dynamics of polymer solution

② Analysis of blood rheology and gelation of plasma proteins

③ Characterization of polymer (Study on molecular properties in thermal equilibrium)

④ Analysis of irreversible transport phenomena in non-equilibrium phenomena of polymers

⑤ Molecular dynamics analysis of soft materials

In short, it means “to study the properties of soft substances at the molecular level.“

Since joining Tokai University in 2005, I have been conducting molecular dynamics research on soft materials as a member of the Dielectric Spectroscopy Group with Prof. Shin Yagihara and Prof. Naoki Shinyashiki of the Department of Physics. Soft materials containing water (synthetic polymers [Ref. 1-7], gels [Ref. 8-11], biopolymers etc. [Ref. 12-16], mixed solution of low molecules [Ref. 17-19], ultra thin polymer film we have been studying the molecular properties of dispersions,using various methods such as laser interferometry, light scattering, small-angle X-ray scattering, thermal analysis, viscoelasticity measurement, and broadband dielectric spectroscopy.

As a subject of physics, we are actively adopting basic research on the structure and function of biological macromolecules such as polysaccharides, nucleic acids, and proteins, which are complex systems, and methods and methodologies of polymer physics. In addition, it will be quite challenging in terms of physics. Based on this, we also conduct molecular biology research and research aimed at industrial applications. Recently, in cooperation with the teachers of the Micro / Nano Research and Development Center, we are focusing on fusion research between humanities and science, and hope to return the results to education.

－Please tell us about your activities at the Micro / Nano Research and Development Center.

In 2014, adopted the Private University Strategic Research Support Project “Next-Generation Medical Technology Created from Ultrathin Polymer” (5 years in Tokai University ) by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, I was involved in the establishment and operation of the company and has been conducting joint research with teachers from each department and department of Tokai University. There were many encounters, and I was able to understand the difficulty of collaborative research beyond the boundaries of the field, as well as experience its effectiveness and the impact of success. Communicating with a variety of professional teachers gives me lots of new realizations and makes me study a lot. Sometimes it’s difficult to keep up, but I feel that it’s also fun.