・Drug Discovery and Target Identification
Human plasma contains over 3,000 proteins, yet less than 20 are used in current blood products. To discover novel therapeutic candidates, we integrate Data Science, CRISPR-based genome editing, and zebrafish models—focusing on neurological diseases and congenital heart defects.

・Medical Coating Development
Medical devices such as catheters and artificial blood vessels require high biocompatibility and antimicrobial properties. We are developing novel coatings using patented Diamond-like Carbon (DLC) technology, aiming for improved safety, tissue regeneration, and real-time biosensing functionality.

・Health and Safety in Agriculture
Agricultural workers face a significantly higher risk of fatal accidents. Our work focuses on long-term health monitoring and accident prevention, using data-driven approaches and bio-design strategies in collaboration with industry, academia, and government.

I study hybridization and introgression of wild and cultivated plants using molecular markers. Especially I analyze those the distinction of which from native plants are now difficult due to their naturalizaion in pre-modern times. I also study the distinction and origin of cultivars using molecular genotying. In addition, I study the problems in denomination and nomenclature of cultivated plants as a member of the Internationl Commission for the Nomenclature of Cultivated Plants.

Infrorescence of a tree cultivated as ‘Somei-yoshino’ at the Koshikawa Botanical Gardens, University of Tokyo. I demonstrated that this individual has different genotype from true ‘Somei-yoshino’, the clonallity of the latter cultivar is verified by molecular markers.

Insects adapt to various terrestrial environments. In temperate regions, to survive cold temperatures in winter is essential for insects. Thus, many insects predict the arrival of period which is not suitable for development and reproduction, and change their physiological state. I am studying how insects regulate the life cycles in response to environmental signals, by field observations and rearing experiments.

We have to evaluate the occurrence prediction and disaster occurrence risk of landslides from inspection data. We analyze the trend of the past of the disaster, to assess whether the “when” “where” landslide disaster occurs, we are working to hazard maps.
These results are considered useful in a safe life.

Our laboratory conducts petrological research on granites widely distributed in southwestern Japan, using fieldwork as the main means of study. In addition to granite, we also reserch to tuffs and basic igneous rocks. Informatics technics, such as GIS are used in study. In addition, granite weathering, landform formation, stone material utilization, etc. are being studied.

How can the population ｓustain in wetlands where the environment spatially and temporally fluctuates? We study the ecology of amphibians and reptiles in wetlands as target areas. Also, we study the anthropogenic impacts, such as paddy improvement and abandonment, on those populations from the viewpoint of conservation biology as well as ecology and evolution.

Based on fieldwork in flood zones from the Himalayan highlands above 4,000 meters to the zero-meter flood zones, we are trying to elucidate the actual disaster conditions and land development processes in each region. In contrasting between regions, we emphasize primary data and attempt to relativize the issues.

“Home economics” in school education aims to improve the skill of homemaking through the velationships between oneself and their family, their consumption habit, their eating habit, their dwelling life, their clothing life and so on.
“Home economics” is concerned with not only our claily life but some subjects life social studies and science. Moreover it’s very important to reflect on your home life so far.
I investigate how “Home economics” should be and I design exciting, satisfactory and practical classes.

Specializes in education through teaching materials, methods, curriculum design, teachers’ training for inter-linguistic and intercultural communication based on social psychology. In 2007, started “Primary School Project” in Democratic Republic of Congo through intercultural collaboration, has continuously introduced how to create an atmosphere for “mutual collaboration” and “sustainable relationship” with the local community, and is always working with young researchers on the fieldwork-based approach in exploring how to interpret social and cultural phenomena in local communities to develop a model school for the area. We have other related projects in Kagoshima, Yamaguchi, Nagano, Kanagawa, Akita, Aomori.

As my specialty is interlinguistic and intercultural communication based on education, and I am researching its curriculum design and teaching methods. Generally, when we think about intercultural communication, it is exchange with foreign countries that comes to mind. However, even when we are talking with Japanese people, a word can often be interpreted completely differently by the other person, due to individual understandings of the image evoked by that particular word that arises from our diverse backgrounds. Nevertheless, there is the mistaken impression that sharing a language or an interpretation equals understanding, and major communication gaps can arise before we know it.
What is more, my special field of research is the creation of environments for interlinguistic and intercultural communication that generate these kinds of “discoveries.” What steps are required, what kind of settings do we need to create, and what kind of program do we need to assemble? This involves developing a curriculum design, creating an environment that generates sustainable shared understandings as quickly and naturally as possible, and coming up with the methodology to teach the required content and language, for example. We are undertaking this research by putting these concepts into practice through specific projects.

1. Regional Revitalization and Community Development through Tourism
Japan is experiencing both population decline and aging, in addition to globalization. “Revitalizing local communities through the expansion of exchange and relationship populations” is becoming a key theme. One answer to this theme is “tourism,” and various promotional measures are being actively implemented throughout Japan. This research focuses on various methods, organizations, and regional initiatives as case studies to harness the power of tourism.
2. Diversifying Tourism and Tourism Marketing
Tourism is shifting from traditional sightseeing to an “authenticity-oriented” approach that emphasizes experiential value. This has led to a diversification of travel forms and customer needs, making it more complex. To address this diversification of tourism, we believe that tourism marketing requires understanding needs through data analysis and a marketing approach that considers both “Tokyo” and “outside Tokyo.” This research is progressing in this area.

“Was that policy or promotion effective?” I answer this using data and theory — applying consumer behavior models (e.g., Theory of Planned Behavior) to longitudinal survey data before and after implementation to verify causality, not just correlation. I quantify how attitude change translates into actual behavior (purchases, participation, subscriptions, etc.) to pinpoint what drove results. Whether you’re a local government navigating KPI/KGI design or a company evaluating promotions, we bring proven experience across dining-out demand, disaster prevention, and food loss reduction campaigns.

Let me introduce the second topic of my research interests:
Consider a situation in which we wish to select items or variables so as to delete the redundant variables or to make a small dimensional rating scale to measure latent traits, variable selection in principal component analysis (PCA) is necessary to identify a subset of variables that represents all variables as much as possible.
In the figure below, the left-hand plot is a scatter plot of the 1st and 2nd principal components (PCs) obtained based on all 19 original variables, and the right-hand plot is based on seven selected variables. Little difference exists between the two configurations of PCs. This illustrates the meaningfulness of variable selection in PCA since selected variables can provide almost the same result as the original variables if the goal of the analysis is to observe the configuration of the PCs.

We can perform the variable selection in PCA as a prior analysis in big data analysis, and apply the proposed selection procedures to other multivariate methods such as factor analysis and correspondence analysis.In this topic, we also study on how to deal with categorical/qualitative data (for the first topic), and how to improve the computation effectively (for the third topic).

In response to the crisis of social, cultural, and economic sustainability in rural areas caused by declining birthrates and aging populations, the regional management movement, in which industry, academia, government, and the private sector collaborate to solve problems, has attracted attention.
In this laboratory, we support the construction of marketing databases for tourism marketing organizations that practice regional management, while analyzing the information obtained from these databases and examining effective regional management strategies.
There are two topics in this laboratory,
(1) Research on the relationships and roles among entities in effectively functioning regional management,
(2) Research on the construction of a marketing database that contributes to the formulation of regional management strategies and on evaluation indices for regional management.

I collect various data on people’s behavior, attitudes, and psychological states, and conduct research to explore relationships among variables. I focus on social science research methods such as questionnaires and online experiments, but I also aim to conduct research in collaboration with adjacent fields such as humanities and engineering.
In particular, I am interested in understanding mechanisms by which people in a position to evaluate and make choices, such as consumers and users of services, compare objects and make decisions. I am currently focusing on the following research topics. (1) Research on mechanisms by which consumers compare and select products and services bearing brand names or proper nouns such as names of places or people. (2) Research on mechanisms by which tourists, current residents, and prospective residents evaluate attractiveness of regions such as prefectures and municipalities. (3) Research on mechanisms by which users evaluate satisfaction with SNS, the Internet, and services using 5G technology.

[Health promotion and lifelong sports]
The important thing is to keep exercising. Sports are also important from the perspective of release stress and mental health. Wearable devices have made it possible to measure heart rate and walking distance during exercise. I promote research that contributes to health promotion and lifelong sports.
[Choice reaction time and performance]
The study of choice tasks leads to improved sports performance. The study of reaction time improved prevent accidents. I am studying reaction time and selection tasks.
[Environmental temperature and physiological stress]
Physiological stress during exercise in a hot or cold environment is evaluated using indices such as heart rate and body temperature. I am studying against heatstroke and prevention of hypothermia.

Despite being primarily developed for industrial purposes and not intended for direct human consumption, many chemical substances still come into contact with the human body and organisms in the environment through various pathways, such as water, air, and other environmental factors. Ensuring a safe and secure society requires a thorough evaluation of the toxicity of pharmaceuticals and chemical substances.
In our laboratory, we conduct research on the toxicity of chemical substances through comprehensive gene expression analysis and obtain omics data to elucidate the molecular-level mechanisms, a field known as toxicogenomics. In addition to utilizing omics technology for understanding the inter-organ coordination of energy metabolism in vivo, our research also focuses on elucidating pathological processes in both humans and dogs.

Veterinary pathology is the study of the causes of animal diseases and the study of their mechanisms. The results revealed by veterinary pathology are returned to clinical practice to help diagnose and treat animal diseases. Although our research targets all kinds of animals other than humans, we also contribute to the human medicine through basic research using laboratory animals.
I have experience in pathological diagnosis in a variety of animals, including companion animals, industrial animals, laboratory animals, wild animals, exotic animals, zoo and aquarium animals, fish, and invertebrates. I aim to identify issues from spontaneous diseases seen in various animals and to conduct research that can be fed back to clinical practice. At the same time, I will develop basic research using experimental pathological methods.

We are concerned with biomimetic microstructure formed by self-spreading behavior of phospholipid molecular assembly in nanotechnology fields. Especially, a pollen like structure formed by egg-yolk phosphatidylcholine myelin figures has been studied by use of an optical microscopy. Budding of giant liposomes (GUV ~ 50µm) from the tip of spore like structure were observed. The size of GUV and the forming behavior were discussed using a geometric packing shape and a phase separation phenomenon of phospholipid molecules.

The difficult past was a catastrophic event that led to “mass death,” and the damage was felt not only by the dead but also by the survivors. This applies to wars, pollution damage, isolation policies for Hansen’s disease, pollution damage, etc. Furthermore, because such damage involves a complex relationship between perpetrators and victims, the “interpretation = meaning” of the event is likely to be divided depending on one’s position, making it difficult to pass on experiences. Based on the concepts of collaboration and ESD, I create spaces for dialogue, practice public history, and deepen my research on the inheritance of difficult past experiences.

In these days of drastic social change, it is difficult to predict how the future will unfold. Crime is also facing an endless number of unique crimes of lone offenders, as seen in the murder of former Prime Minister Abe, the extended suicide case in Kyoto Animation, and the murders that occur in closed rooms on trains. Such crimes cause anxiety among the public and have a significant impact on safety and security, which is the foundation of society. Given the limitations of the limited human resources of the police, we are researching efficient police activities and new investigation methods utilizing ICT, as well as crime prediction through crime occurrence analysis.
In addition, in order to protect the lives of citizens who are extremely difficult to rescue by self-help and mutual aid in the event of a disaster such as a torrential downpour or a massive earthquake caused by global climate change, we are conducting research on how local governments, self-defense forces, fire departments, and police can act to protect citizens by utilizing ICT technology to gather information on their daily living conditions. We are also conducting research on how local governments, the Self-Defense Forces, fire departments, and police can act to protect the public.