ReSEARCH

TRY Everything!

Molecular Glycoscience

Carbohydrates: not only energy sources! When I was a graduate student, I didn't know their properties, structures, activities, and even their importance at all. Therefore, I can say that ignorance lead me to the research area of molecular glycoscience which is profound, intellectual, and diverse. 

    We are interested in development of synthetic strategies of biologically active oligosaccharides and oligosaccharides with unique structures. Carbohydrates are abundant and oligosaccharides are related to many biological events of plants and animals including human being. Understanding their roles at molecular level is important to control the events through creation of better molecules.

Selected Molecules

Selected publications

Organic Electrochemistry

Welcome to the world of old new chemistry! Recently electrochemical methods have been recognized as a powerful and environmentally  benign tools for organic synthesis, but the method has a long history since Kolb reported his method in 1848.

    We are interested in basic and application of redox (reduction and oxidation) reactions of organic molecules. How to control redox of organic molecules is the key issue of organic electrochemistry. Reversible redox reactions of organic molecules are useful for electronic devices and energy storage. Irreversible redox reactions are also important for effective and selective transformations of organic molecules. 

Variety of oligosaccharides synthesized by Automated Electrochemical Assembly (AEA)

Selected publications

functional Ionic liquids

Liquid with variety of applications! Ionic liquids are liquids and salts with high thermal stability and no vapor pressure. They expands applications of liquids and have potentials to replace a variety of liquid materials.

    As synthetic organic chemists, we are interested in novel ionic liquids with unique functions and structures. How to prepare those ionic liquids efficiently with high purity on a large scale is still challenging from viewpoints of organic synthesis. Of course, they are not as complex as natural products; however, small molecules are difficult to make because of their limited possibilities of their retrosynthetic pathways.

Selected Molecules

Selected publications