生体認識化学研究室

Laboratory of Biorecognition Chemistry

Chemical tools to explore new world of biomolecules!

Excellent chemistry reveals new facts of life and that knowledge creates a new way of thinking. Innovative chemical biology tools coupled with advancement of performance in analytical instruments often leads to the discovery of bioactive materials that have never been seen before, and drastically changes the concepts in life science. In order to understand their physiological functions and relationship with diseases, and further to create and optimize new drugs, it is necessary to know the key signal-regulating protein. Despite its importance at the initial stage of drug discovery, the target protein identification of bioactive molecules is generally complicated, and indeed, the target of many drugs currently in use are not known. We have developed high-performance photochemical tools that are able to greatly simplify steps in protein identification process, and specify drug-interacting protein and its binding site in a short period. In addition, our click chemistry enables to convert a variety of biomolecules, DNAs, peptides and carbohydrates, into functional probes in a one-step manner. We hope to reveal off targets that lead to the discover of unexpected biomolecular network.

Main Research Projects

1.Innovation of high-throughput approach for identifying drug-targets
2.Chemical tools for imaging and specifying biomolecules, and elucidating its binding site within protein
3.Development and application of bioorthogonal coupling reactions
4.Rational drug discovery by affinity-based lead optimization
5.Self-organizing molecule for create stimuli-responsive macromolecular suits