Description of Research Area

A03-004  Spatiotemporal Ordering and Its Extension to Biological Phenomena

Research Subject

In order to unveil the long-standing problem, 'What is life?', we construct various kinds of real-world models of life phenomena. 1) On the molecular level, we focus on phase-transitions of genome-sized giant DNA molecules. By controlling higher-order structures, we try to realize the on/off switching in the genetic activity close to observations in living system. 2) To shed light on the mechanism of self-emergent life on the level of individual cells, we try to construct a real-world model of living cell. We may study the structure-activity relationship by utilizing the model cellular system. 3) We will study the mechanism of self-organization in multi-cellular system, by extending our recent 'non-Turing' hypothesis. We will also develop experimentally self-motile systems.

Co-Investigator

TSURUYAMA, Tatsuaki

Faculty of Medicine, Kyoto University

Co-Investigator

ICHIKAWA, Masatoshi

Department of Physics,
Kyoto University