Toru Asahi
Official Title
Professor
Department of Life Science and Medical Bioscience
School of Advanced Science and Engineering, Waseda University
Research Fields
Bio-Solid State Science / Chiral Science / Magnetic thin film
Research
Optical, electromagnetic, and physicochemical properties of various chiral substances are investigated from an interdisciplinary scientific view point. Advanced studies on chiroptical properties such as optical activity and circular dichroism are focused on, aiming at applications of the unique optical apparatus, the Generalized High Accuracy Universal Polaimeter (abbreviated as G-HAUP), to medical optics. Chiral film such as amino acid films are developed and chiral recognition mechanism using them is investigated. The scientific fact that a human body consists only of proteins with L-body amino acids and DNA with D-body sugars, we call it the mystery of homochrality, is well known. We are challenging to reveal out the origin of homochirality.
Selected publications
1. Yoh Shitashima, Togo Shimozawa, Akiko Kumagai, Atsushi Miyawaki, Toru Asahi.
Two Distinct Fluorescence States of the Ligand-Induced Green Fluorescent Protein UnaG
Biophysical Journal, 113(12), 2805-2814 (2017).
2. Kenta Nakagawa, Alexander T. Martin, Shane M. Nichols, Veronica L. Murphy, Bart Kahr, Toru Asahi.
Optical Activity Anisotropy of Benzil
J. Phys. Chem. C, 121(45), 25494-25502 (2017).
3. Ye Ju, Toru Asahi, Naoya Sawamura.
Arctic Aβ40 blocks the nicotine-induced neuroprotective effect of CHRNA7 by inhibiting the ERK1/2 pathway in human neuroblastoma cells
Neurochemistry International, 110, 49-56 (2017).
4. Daisuke Baba, Cuiling Li, Vector Malgras, Bo Jiang, Hatem R. Alamri, Zeid A. Alothman, Shahriar A. Hossain, Yusuke Yamauchi, Toru Asahi.
Fabrication of Mesoporous Cu Films on Cu Foils and Their Applications to Dopamine Sensing
Chem. Asian J., 12, 2467-2470 (2017).
5. Muhammad Iqbal, Cuiling Li, Kathleen Wood, Bo Jiang, Toshiaki Takei, Ömer Dag, Daisuke Baba, Asep Sugih Nugraha, Toru Asahi, Andrew E Whitten, Shahriar A Hossain, Victor Malgras, Yusuke Yamauchi.
Continuous Mesoporous Pd Films by Electrochemical Deposition in Nonionic Micellar Solution
Chem. Mater., 29(15), 6405-6413 (2017).