Hydrogels of Cytoskeletal Proteins (PDF)

Professor Yoshihito Osada obtained his Bachelor's
degree in chemistry from Waseda University, Japan, and received his Ph.D. in
polymer science from Moscow State University (supervisor: Prof. V.A. Kabanov).
He began as a professor in 1992, then became the Dean and eventually the Vice President of Hokkaido
University, Sapporo, Japan. He was invited to be Deputy Director at the Advanced
Science Institute, RIKEN in 2007. He is currently a Senior Visiting Scientist at
RIKEN and a professor emeritus at Hokkaido University.

Professor Yoshihito Osada is a pioneer of polymer gels. He developed artificial muscle systems
using various functional gels such as Shape Memory Gel and Double Network Gel
with excellent mechanical performances. His current interests focus on highly-hierarchical protein gels with "emergent"
muscle functions, nano-patterning of the gel, and electro-conductive gels.



Ken-Ichi Sano
received his B.S. degree in biology from Osaka City University, Japan, in
1993, and his Ph.D. degree in biophysics from Nagoya University, Japan, in
2000. In 1994, he joined the International Institute for Advanced Research,
Panasonic, and since 1999 he has worked for RIKEN, Harima Institute at SPring-8.
Since 2003 he has been with the Department of Protein Engineering, Cancer
Institute, Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research, where
he studied interfacial molecules between biomaterials and inorganics. In 2008,
he joined the Molecular and System Life Science Unit, Advanced Science Institute,
RIKEN as a Contract Researcher, and became Deputy Unit Leader in 2009 where he
studied hydrogels of cytoskeletal proteins. In April 2011 he joined the Department of Innovative Systems Engineering, Nippon Institute of Technology as
an Associate Professor. His current research interests include cellular drug
delivery systems and evaluation of antidepressant agents using novel models.






Ryuzo Kawamura
was born in