Department of Biochemistry

Our goal is to produce medical doctors and scientists who possess rich humanity as well as high expertise through original and creative researches and the most advanced education.

We believe that the basic medicine is very important to cultivate the spirit of medicine, and teach the idea, knowledge and skills of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

Students will understand the molecular mechanisms of the Physiology as well as the Pathology by learning the basal concept on Biochemistry and Molecular Biology.

We are interested in enigma in the life that is unable to understand only from the viewpoint of Genetics. The post-genomic research era has now been launched and science has become more concerned with the proteomics and the post-translational modification of proteins.

We are studying Glycobiology and Lipidbiology in the context of Neurology, Developmental Biology and Oncology. Glycans and Lipids serve as not only energy sources but also building blocks for the living organisms, especially as components of biomembranes. They are not directly defined by genes but generated by enzymes without templates. From this point of view, Glycans and Lipids are belonging to the intermediate rank of the hierarchy of the life in which an organism is made from the genome, and may be the most suitable subject to study Self-organization in the generation of the life.

Most of membrane proteins are distributed non-randomly on the plasma membranes and exist as clusters in the nanometer-scale domains. These membrane microdomains are dynamically formed and break up in a short time, and serves as platforms for important biological events, such as signal transduction, cell adhesion, and protein trafficking. We are studying the roles of Glycans and Lipids in the molecular mechanisms that occur in the membrane microdomains involved in the biological events, such as development and differentiation, neuronal function and cancer, by developing original technology including production of monoclonal antibody for a membrane microdomain and the EMARS method by which neighboring molecules of a target molecule are labeled.