Chemistry and Chemical Bioengineering Unit (Fujie Tanaka)

Research

Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Bioorganic Chemistry

Creating and developing molecules and methodologies required for basic biomedical research

The ability to design, create, and synthesize organic molecules has the tremendous impact on human life.  For example, most therapeutics, diagnostics, and probes used in biological research are organic molecules.  Thus, the development of methods to design, create, synthesize designer molecules is important and essential.  This unit develops (1) efficient, concise, and safe chemical transformation methods and strategies for constructing small molecules bearing functional groups and/or chiral centers, (2) enzyme-like small organic molecule catalysts and protein catalysts to accelerate designed chemical transformations, and (3) strategies and tools for the design and selection of highly efficient catalysts and chemical transformations.  This unit also investigates the chemistry bases of the catalyses and reaction mechanisms to further the understanding of the chemistry of molecular functions and constructions.  The research undertaken by this unit advances the chemistry of catalysis and of molecular synthesis.  Studies by this unit accelerate the creation of molecules and contribute to the development of new therapeutics, therapeutic strategies, diagnostics, and probes used in biomedical research.