I’m trying to understand “What is life ?” from soft matter physics point of view. For example, an unfertilized egg and a fertilized egg of an animal are in a "sleeping state" and an “actively living state”, respectively. Although both are made of the same substances, they are in completely different states from the perspective of whether they are “living" or not. I’m now trying to evaluate “living state” through the mechanical properties such as the membrane fluidity. In cell membranes, proteins diffuse in a sea of lipid bilayer and regulate the cellular functions such as signal transduction, membrane transport and cell recognition by interacting with substances inside and outside the cell membrane. Thus, the fluidity of the cell membrane is important property to understand the activity of living organisms. By measuring the membrane fluidity of living cell membranes, I’m trying to express the "living state" with a physical quantity and to elucidate the factors controlling the fluidity in the "living state".

There are many kinds of soft matter from those directly related to industrial applications, such as polymers and liquid crystals, to amphiphilic molecules such as lipids that form living organisms. I have been fascinated by the possibilities of this field, which attempts to understand the most complex soft matter, living organisms, using simple laws of physics since my first encounter with it. When I started my research, I was working within the framework of soft matter physics. Since my interest is in living organisms, I started to collaborate with researchers in a variety of fields, including medicine, pharmacology, and genetics. Although we have different knowledge and skills depending on our fields of expertise, we obtain new knowledge and receive inspiration from each other by working together toward a single goal. We are exploring new possibilities, such as medical applications, from our research that crosses disciplinary boundaries.

Although research is hard work, I have been able to continue to do it because I like it. It is a great pleasure to share the excitement with my collaborators when the experimental work is succeeded. I encourage you to challenge various things at university and find something that interests you. And I also hope that you will meet friends who share those interests.