Inviter：Airi Nakamoto Kato, Postdoc, PDA and Office of Science and Technology Administration
Abstract: Until now, the link between soft matter science and medical/life science has not been clearly recognized. However, many problems in medicine can be understood phenomenologically, and I would like to emphasize that the approach used in soft matter physics has a big potential in medical/life science. My ultimate goal in WIUCAS is to establish a new academic field called “Biomedical Soft Matter”.
To accomplish my research purpose, I shall focus on the following three aspects of bio-soft matter. (i) Amphiphilic molecules are necessary for combining different types of soft matter to form composite materials. Based on my experiences on membranes, surfactants, emulsions and colloids, I will develop the field of amphiphilic soft matter. (ii) Most biological phenomena are in non-equilibrium situations. My long-term research purpose is to establish a fundamental theory of non-equilibrium soft matter. (iii) In recent years, we have been intensively working on active systems such as micromachines, microswimmers, and enzymes. Active matter offers a simple understanding of biological systems and medical problems.
At the end of my talk, I will briefly present our most recent work; "Odd Microswimmer". We propose a model for a thermally driven microswimmer in which three spheres are connected by two springs with odd elasticity. We demonstrate that the presence of odd elasticity leads to the directional locomotion of the stochastic microswimmer.
Bibliography:He was an Associate Professor at the Department of Chemistry, Tokyo Metropolitan University, Japan and has just moved to WIUCAS from October, 2021. With an emphasis on the relation to biological phenomena, he has conducted theoretical research to elucidate fluctuations, structures, and dynamics of biological soft matter (polymers, liquid crystals, colloids, bio-materials, etc.) from the viewpoint of material science. In this area, he has published 139 papers (including Phys. Rev. Lett., Phys. Rev. E, EPL, Soft Matter, J. Chem. Phys., Langmuir), 5 book chapters, and one edited book entitled “Non-Equilibrium Soft Matter Physics” (World Scientific). He translated three English text books on soft matter (Safran, Hamley, Witten) into Japanese.