Visualization and control of cell function in living mice
Project Gist
Visualization and control of cell function in living mice.
Keywords
Fluorescent protein, Biosensor, Optogenetics, Live imaging
Background and Purpose
For the understanding of pathogenesis of various human diseases including cancer and inflammation, it is essential to visualize the cellular functions in live tissues. Following this approach, we need to perturb cellular functions to validate the hypothesis that was built on the observation. Here, we aimed to develop a platform for the study of various diseases based on our biosensor technology and the collaborators’ optogenetic tools.
Project Achievements
The project leader had been the principal researcher of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research on Innovative Areas “Fluorescence Live imaging” of The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology, Japan (2010~2015). With the help of SPIRITS, we organized an international symposium in 2015. The 2015 Nobel Laureate Dr. Erik Betzig and the SPIRITS collaborator Michael Z. Lin.Among were among many foreign guest speakers. The success of this symposium has promoted collaboration of domestic researchers with international distinguished researchers in this field. Furthermore, during this period, five researchers and students visited Kyoto University and communicated with many Japanese graduate students. Thus, the SPIRITS grant helped not only the senior but also the junior researchers to set up international networks.
Future Prospects
We will continue collaborative work on the development of novel optogenetic tools and fluorescent biosensors. Two senior researchers of Stanford University will visit Kyoto University for the discussion on the future projects in June 2016. We are also planning to invite graduate students and post-doctoral researchers from Stanford University to international student’s symposium of Kyoto University and to send graduate students of Kyoto University to Stanford University for the discussion.
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Principal Investigator
・MATSUDA Michiyuki
・Graduate School of Biostudies/
・Michiyuki Matsuda was graduated from Faculty of Medicine The University of Tokyo, trained as an anatomical and experimental pathologist, and obtained his PhD in medical science. Under Late Professor Hidesaburo Hanafusa at The Rockefeller University, he studied v-Crk oncogene product and found SH2 domain-mediated recognition of phosphotyrosine-containing proteins in 1990. In the past two decades, he has been developing FRET biosensors to visualize signal transduction in living cells and animals. Now, he intends to talk to the cells in living animals by the words of Light.
・http://www.fret.lif.kyoto-u.ac.jp/
