Division of Innovative Research and Development Advanced Research & Development Programs for Medical Innovation（AMED-CREST, PRIME）

[Research and Development Objective] Elucidation of Mechanobiological Mechanisms Leading to the Development of Innovative Medical Instruments and Technologies

The main objective of the R&D area is to elucidate the mechanisms by which cells and tissues sense, transduce, and respond to physical stimulations and to utilize such mechanobiologic knowledge to develop new fundamental technologies that will lead to medical applications.

In recent years it has become apparent that cells in a human body are exposed to a variety of physical forces created by the motion of skeletal muscles and organs and by blood stream, gravity, and neighboring cells (including mechanical forces created by the microenviroment around cells), and that the cells utilize such physical stimulations to control their own growth, differentiation, proliferation, death, morphogenesis, migration, etc. However, the precise molecular mechanisms remain unclear by which cells sense physical stimulations and convert them into intracellular biochemical signals and their ultimate physiological or pathological responses. In order to clarify the roles of physical stimulations in the structure and function of cells, tissues, organs, and organisms, mechanobiology has come into being as a new research field based on physics, engineering, biology, and medicine.

Elucidation of the mechanisms by which organisms sense and respond to physical stimulations has the potential to lead to breakthroughs in the effort to solve various biological and medical problems, e.g. problems concerning ordered formation of tissues during the growth and development of individuals and wound healing, and regenerative medicine. Moreover, by utilizing Japan’s state of the art technologies such as bio-nano surface technology and MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical systems), it should become possible to develop new devices, e.g., devices capable of quantitatively applying and controlling physical stimulations and apparatus capable of precisely measuring biological reactions to physical stimulations.

The aim of the R&D area is to promote mechanobiology research and develop basic techniques that will lead to innovative medical instruments and technologies so as to contribute the achievement of a society in which people are healthy and live a long life.

2015

Program Supervisor (PS)

SOKABE Masahiro

Professor, Human Information Systems Laboratory, Kanazawa Institute of Technology

Program Officer (PO)

ANDO Joji

Professor, Laboratory of Biomedical Engineering, Dokkyo Medical University School of Medicine

R&D Area Advisors

KOTERA Hidetoshi

Kyoto University

SATO Masaaki

Tohoku University

SHIGEMATSU Takashi

FUJIFILM Corporation

TAKEDA Shinichi
NARUSE Keiji

National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry(NCNP)

Okayama University

NISHIMOTO Takahiro

Shimadzu Corporation

MIZUMURA Kazue

Professor Emeritus, Nagoya University