There have been numerous recent studies highlighting that a person's fecal sample contains abundant health and disease risk information. Thus, due to wealth of information it encompasses, we consider them as "brown gems." MetaGen, Inc. is a leading venture company originating from Keio University and Tokyo Institute of Technology where we evaluate an individual's human health condition based on their own "brown gems" analyzed by our cutting-edge technology, MetabologenomicsTM. The mission of MetaGen, Inc. is to develop a novel healthcare industry, and with the valuable information we have collected, we hope to ultimately create a "disease-free society."

We have developed a novel technology for high-throughput metabolome analysis, which can simultaneously quantify a large amount of metabolites.
Based on this technology, we founded Human Metabolome Technologies, Inc. (HMT), and the company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange Mothers in December, 2013.
Using this technology, HMT has discovered a biomarker of major depression, Ethanolamine Phosphate (EAP), and is trying to make the diagnostic service commercial world-wide.

In modern day where increased life expectancy and high quality of life is of increasing importance, maintaining and promoting good health via a healthy dietary lifestyle is vital. Via metabolomics and other omics-based studies, we comprehensively analyze the beneficial effects of functional foods system-wide. We envision that the methods of this study-nutriomics, a first in the field of nutrition, will serve as a clarion call to uncover new dietary intervention strategies designed to recover normal homeostasis in disease states and to maintain healthy well-being, bringing forward a new evolution in nutritional science.

Saliva is a biofluid enables easily, noninvasively, and safely collection of physical condition of oral cavity as well as whole body. We already found potential salivary biomarkers for detecting several diseases. Now, we are developing versatile system to monitor your health status using these markers.

Spider silk is a super fiber that is tougher than iron and as light as nylon. As it does not rely on oil as a source, it is gathering public attention as the next-generation environmentally friendly fiber. Spiber Inc. has demonstrated capabilities to create products with synthetic spider silk, and is poised to redefine 21st-century manufacturing with its technologies through an endeavor to enable industrial scale production of its high performance materials.

With the rapid advance in DNA sequencing technologies, we will soon be able to sequence our own personal genomes with less than $1,000. This has the potential to transform modern medical care, which currently centers around treatment during illness, to preventive medicine, where the illness is prevented before its onset in the first place. On the other hand, many social and ethical issues exist as well. For this purpose, we have sequenced the whole personal genome of Professor Masaru Tomita, and made it open in public DNA databank for educational use.

A wide variety of commensal microbes are colonized in our gut. They exert several physiological and pathological effects on our health via host-microbial crosstalk. It has been postulated that imbalance of the commensal microbes could be a risk factor for human disorders such as obesity, colorectal cancer, as well as infectious diseases. Our recent research demonstrated that bifidobacteria, known as one of the 'good' commensal microbes, could prevent enterohemorrhagic E. coli O157:H7 infection through the up-regulation of gut epithelial barrier function. Further analysis showed that acetate produced by bifidobacteria is a key molecule for the inhibition of E. coli O157:H7 infection through the up-regulation of gut epithelial barrier function.

"Biocamp" is a program that allows SFC undergraduate students to stay at the dorms at Tsuruoka Campus (Yamagata Prefecture) for one to two semesters, and acquire the fundamental and practical skills of biotechnology. At the end of each semester there are English presentations, and we aim to nurture students that will actively participate in scientific research around the world. It is possible to get up to 20 credits, and participants can develop creative ideas, studying in the natural environment of Tsuruoka.

Neutral lipids derived from oil-accumulating microalgae have promising potential for a next-generation biofuel. However, reduction of the production cost is necessary for their commercialization. We are currently constructing a collection of Japanese oil-accumulating microalgae, and comparing their productivity, quality of produced oil, and their growth rates. We anticipate that some profitable strains will be found from the culture collection. Additionally, we performed metabolome analyses of the oil-accumulating microalgae to reveal the flow of metabolites in the cells. The results would help the development of more highly oil-accumulating algal strains.

A new approach to preventive medical is in need to make a society that citizens can live a healthy life. This collaborative research, which Shonai and Tsuruoka health-care specialists, Tsuruoka City, Yamagata Prefecture, and Institute for Advanced Biosciences, Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, and School of Medicine are participating, is conducting a follow up on ten thousand citizens for 25 years, which is the first prospective cohort in the world. By combining the metabolome analysis technology and epidemiology research of IAB, we are aiming to construct a new preventive care.

We revealed the certain fibroblasts expressing VCAM-1 protein proliferated and migrated pluripotent stem cell-derived cardiomyocytes. And it contributed to fabricate a functional myocardial tissue beating evenly. This research aims to establish an easy minimally invasive method of isolating its fibroblasts by taking advantage of our bioinformatics technology expertise. It is our goal that fabricating functional tissue grafts only from ES/iPS-derived cells. For patients who have heart disease included ischemic cardiac disease, we hope to supply minimally invasive engineered myocardial grafts.

Muscular dystrophy is a neuromuscular disorder that causes muscle weakness and hypotonia, hence it is known as a remediless rare disease. This research takes advantage of the leading-edge Metabolome analysis technologies, and aims to develop drugs for treatment, since development of medical treatments and supplies against rare diseases cannot advance at a quick pace. We are conducting comprehensive metabolic analysis and are analyzing amino acids and fatty acids contained in the tissues of a muscular dystrophy model mouse, to clarify novel pathogenetic mechanisms.

Is it possible to create living organism from the mass of iPS cells? In addition to social-ethical problems of the mammalian cloning, technical difficulties on cell culture make it more difficult. Therefore, we are trying to create living organism using ectogenesis system of amphibian and AC cells, which has pluripotency as same as iPS cells. Today, we will show you the progress of this study.

Tardigrades, commonly known as water-bears, are small animals found throughout the globe, from rooftop of houses in cities to Antarctica, and even in deep sea basin. The majority of the limno-terrestrial tardigrades can withstand dehydration by turning into a "tun" state, at which tardigrades can withstand extreme environments such as extremely high and low temperatures, pressure, and radiation. In fact, tardigrades are the first animals that survived exposure to space vacuum and solar radiation. Here we are actively analyzing the molecular mechanisms for such extremotolerant abilities of tardigrades with the latest technologies of modern biology.