Introduction: Department of Bioengineering, School of Engineering, The Univsersity of Tokyo

Connecting Engineering with Life Sciences and Medicine

This department aims to establish the methodologies of bioengineering to bridge the gap between biological sciences and its applications in the real world such as health-care, medicine, and welfare; drug discovery; issues in environment, energy, and food; safety and security in living; and information and communication technologies. Based on existing disciplines such as mechanical, electrical, chemical, and materials engineering, the methodologies of bioengineering will be specialized into the fields of mechanobioengineering, bioelectronics, biodevices, chemical bioengineering, biomaterials, and bioimaging. Through education in these specialized fields, the department will foster human resources that can take active roles in the research and development of bioengineering.

The research of the Department of Bioengineering is classified into six fields: Mechanobioengineering, Bioelectronics, Biodevices, Chemical Bioengineering, Biomaterials and Bioimaging. We pay special attention to present the latest research achievements in these six fields into the contents of the graduate courses. The outline of the six fields is as follows.

		In this field, we research advanced medical support technologies that combine mechanical engineering and biotechnology. These technologies include the development of: a remote medical diagnostic system based on advanced information technologies, control technologies, and robotic technologies; surgery support robots such as a high-accuracy minimally invasive surgery robot; contrast studies for malignancy applying micro elements composing fluids-such as molecules and bubbles-to phenomena of macro fluids; a noninvasive tumor therapy system using ultrasound; a lithotrity system using failure phenomena of cavitation bubbles; and a bio-nanosystem using DNA handling technologies based on microfabrication, micro measurement technologies, and nano/micro mechatronics.

		The field of bioelectronics investigates the mechanism of biological information processing with the emphasis on distributed representation, parallel processing, and plasticity. Biologically-inspired hardware based on biomolecules and electronics have also been built. Bioelectronics fuses extraction/modeling of biological architecture with the implementation of electronic devices.

		In this field, we study and develop a variety of devices for inspecting states of the living body, organs, cells, proteins and genes. Currently advanced microsystems for biology and medicine (referred to as biochips, micro total analysis systems or Lab-on-a-chips) are being investigated intensively. Some applications of this technology are microelectrode systems for measuring cerebral nerve activity, microchips for high-speed immunoassay, cell sorter devices, and health-care devices for testing whole blood at home.

		The behaviors of biosystems are well-arranged and controlled by the interactions among various functional molecules such as DNA, RNA or proteins in different echelons such as cells, tissues or organs. On the firm basis on chemistry, the research in the chemical bioengineering field is focused on the structure and functions of these biomolecules and on the mechanisms for controlling and coordinating the biosystems through such molecules. The research is also focused on the objective-oriented design; the organization or control of biomolecules, cells, tissue and organs through artificial designing; and the alteration or modification of new biofunctional molecules.

		The field of biomaterials plays essential and versatile roles in bioengineering by providing fundamental science and technology for nanomedicine including gene therapy and drug delivery system, tissue engineering including bone, cartilage and vascular regeneration, organ engineering toward complex organ regeneration, and artificial organs. The field of biomaterials conducts research on creation and application of innovative biomaterials.

		The field of bioimaging aims to acquire images of the structure and functions of biological phenomena in order to quantitatively evaluate their properties. Our research encompasses the applications and developments of a wide variety of advanced bioimaging techniques including molecular imaging, quantum imaging, metabolic imaging, and a bio-simulator. Bioimaging techniques such as fluorescence microscopy of cells have been widely employed to uncover the mechanisms of various biological phenomena. These techniques are also indispensable for recent advanced studies such as a research on DNA sequence analysis and the development of drug delivery.