Smart Polymer Technologies for Global Health

Abstract: Our research group has been developing various types of “smart polymers”. Smart polymer is the general term for polymers that have a property that will turn on and off in response to an external stimulus. Examples of such include temperature-responsive polymers, light-responsive polymers, and pH-responsive polymers. In addition to stimuli-responsive polymers, more recently smart polymers have been developed with shape memory, self-repairing capabilities, and biodegradability. If it is possible to apply such smart properties in the medical field, we expect that this approach might contribute in part to medical treatments that can be received by anyone without being influenced by the infrastructure. In this lecture, I will talk about the enrichment of biomarkers for infectious diseases using temperature-responsive polymers. We have successfully increased the limit of detection of lateral flow immunoassay. We expect that such smart polymer technologies can contribute to the improvement of global health in the future.

Bio: Prof. Mitsuhiro Ebara studied at Waseda University, where he received Ph.D. (2004) degrees in the Department of Applied Chemistry. He was a Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Washington from 2004 to 2006. He became an assistant professor at Osaka University Hospital in 2007. He joined the National Institute for Materials Science (NIMS) in 2009. He is currently working as a deputy director. He is also appointed as a professor at University of Tsukuba and Tokyo University of Science. He has published 140 scientific papers and 130 review papers.