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298 Appendix D. Site Reports—Japan
Site:
Tokyo Institute of Technology
Nagatsuta, Midori-ku
Yokohama 226, Japan
Tel: (81) 45-924 5759; Fax: (81) 45-924 5779
Date Visited: 21 July 1997
WTEC:
Host:
L. Jelinski (report author), E. Hu, M.C. Roco, D. Shaw,
C. Uyehara
Professor Masuo Aizawa, Faculty of Bioscience and
Biotechnology; E-mail: maizawa@bio.titech.ac.jp
BACKGROUND
The Tokyo Institute of Technology has two campuses, one at Tamachi
and another at Nagatsuta. The Nagatsuta Campus is about 20 years old, and
the Faculty of Bioscience and Biotechnology was moved there about six
years ago.
RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT HIGHLIGHTS
Professor Aizawa, whose laboratory the WTEC team visited at the Tokyo
Institute of Technology’s Nagatsuta Campus, was the project leader of a tenyear
national MITI project on bioelectronic devices. The project, which
ended in 1995, involved eight electronics companies and two national labs
for its initial five-year period. One of the electronics companies dropped out
and did not participate in the second term. An example of the work
performed in the project is that by Mitsubishi, which produced an artificial
protein that binds an electron acceptor and electron donor.
It appears that much of what was accomplished in the MITI
bioelectronics project was accomplished in Aizawa’s laboratory (see below).
He set out to answer the question, “Are biological systems ideal for
molecular electronics or not?” Parts of the project that are being continued
appear to be in the form of RIKEN’s Brain Research Center. Formulation of
ideas for somewhat related work is being carried out by the Intelligent
Materials Forum, whose members are working to promote a national project
in this area. (The president of the forum is Toshinori Takagi; Aizawa is the
vice president.) The idea of intelligent materials is to incorporate sensing
and transduction and information processing into the same materials. The