SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, TOHOKU UNIVERSITY Driving Force THE POWER TO MAKE TOMORROW INTERVIIEW REPORT
SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING, TOHOKU UNIVERSITY Driving Force THE POWER TO MAKE TOMORROW INTERVIIEW REPORT

Pursue what you think is interesting
right then and there,
beyond which lies a vision of your future

Associate Professor
Department of Chemical Engineering
Graduate School of Engineering, Tohoku University
Keishi Suga

© School of Engineering, Tohoku University

To see the unseen,
peering into the nanometer world
using optical information

As COVID-19 and its mutants are still a threat to humans today, the development of vaccines and therapeutic medicines is urgently needed around the world. This kind of development research is often considered as being in the specialized fields of medicine or pharmaceuticals, but if we think of dividing a virus into its parts, we can consider it as an assembly of building blocks. There is a researcher who says it is possible to approach the mechanism of how viruses enter the body from the standpoint of chemical engineering, which is part of the study of monozukuri or manufacturing. That researcher is Associate Professor Keishi Suga of the Department of Chemical Engineering of the Graduate School of Engineering at Tohoku University. He specializes in the study of thin films or membranes on the nanometer (one billionth of a meter) scale. His research involves attaching films to the surface of materials, and understanding the properties of the films themselves. “All cells are covered with a membrane. Similarly, membranes or films can be formed or attached on various kinds of surfaces. For example, it's technically possible to attach a soft, biologically-derived film to a solid surface. My interest lies in making films, and discovering what properties these films exhibit. I recently succeeded in observing a space on the scale of 100 nanometers which is about the same size as a virus by attaching a film around gold nanoparticles. I was also able to observe the film which has a thickness of about 5 nanometers, which is even smaller. I think that this kind of research can reveal the mechanism of how a virus (which has a membrane) enters the body,” he explains.

A problem when researching membrane is that it is too thin to be visible. Associate Professor Suga tries various things such as coloring the film itself in order to see it. He says, “My research is also about being able to see what's unseen. By using information in light, peering into the nanometer world, especially that of surfaces, may lead to new scientific techniques. I keep working on my research every day with this dream in mind.”

Does the structure of a material determine its function,
or is the structure just a result of its function?

　

After working at the School of Engineering Science at Osaka University, Associate Professor Suga took up a new post at Tohoku University in April 2020 when he joined the Nagao Lab, which carries out research in the field of material processing. Here, along with continuing his research themes from his Osaka University days, he has kicked off new research fields based on “fusion” of his own research and the specialty of Nagao Lab. He says, “People think of a material as having its own morphology (shape). The question is, does the structure of a material determine its function, or is the structure just a result of its function? So, it's about properties and shape. Nagao Lab is good at research on the shape and morphology control of fine particles (nanoparticles), while I have been conducting research on properties. We can say that the two are related in the sense that Nagao Lab's research themes and my research themes can fill up each other's gaps. Let's say, for example, if my research thus far shows that soft materials (soft matters) exude certain properties, the next step in my research is to find out what will happen if I give a structure to those materials.”

According to Associate Professor Suga, innovation that generates completely new technologies also needs renovation. This means updating old technologies to create modern versions. He says it's the standpoint of finding out what happens when you introduce a little bit of old findings to a certain field, and expressing the result in modern science and technology. “If you're aiming for something that's better than old technologies, you'll need to know about old technologies first. By reviewing a slightly old finding and expressing it in today's scientific language, and by clarifying exactly what's new, the accumulation of such efforts will lead to the creation of truly new things,” he says.

東北大学 工学研究科・工学部 Driving Force 明日を創るチカラ INTERVIIEW REPORT

The question of “What is the slogan/motto of your research?”
Good research must come with a good slogan/motto

Associate Professor Suga says he decided to major in chemical engineering because chemistry was his favorite subject in high school. In between studying for his university entrance exams, he looked up research being done by universities, and he learned about gas hydrates, which are methane and other gases trapped inside ice. “I had been fascinated by methane gas hydrate called ‘burning ice,’ and that was the motivation behind my choice of university,” he says. But when it was time to choose his research lab at university, his interest shifted to proteins. He explains, “You cannot bring a boiled egg back to a raw egg, even if you bring its temperature back to the ordinary room temperature. That's because the structure and properties of the proteins in the egg have changed. On the other hand, the human body has a mechanism called “refolding” where proteins with damaged structures are restored as an emergency response (treatment). I felt the biological wonder and mysteriousness of proteins, and I was interested in the phenomenon of damaged proteins being restored on the surface of soft materials such as cell membranes. This was the starting point of my aspiration to become a researcher.”

There was one other thing that he threw himself into when he was in junior high school and high school. That was playing the tuba in a wind orchestra. Even after entering Osaka University, he continued to play in a city wind orchestra in his hometown of Nara. Associate Professor Suga, says that there are things in common between his experience of playing in a brass band and his research activities at university. “It is very similar to the way how we in modern times play classical music, for example, a piece composed by Beethoven or Alfred Reed. The players, the quality of the instruments, the acoustics – all of the elements through which a piece is played today are different from when the piece was composed. However, the music, though played in such a different environment, is still interesting. The players have the right to perform music regardless of when the piece was composed, and the audience enjoy the modern version of classical music. If we know about the composer and the historical background of a piece, the music that we hear becomes all the more profound. In other words, the way something is produced can change our impression of it. In the world of research, what's important is how many times your paper is cited. Therefore, in order to write a paper that will be cited many times, I read a lot of literature, including my past research. I also value the standpoints of what would happen if something created in the past was reproduced with today's technology, and what exactly would be new. Good research requires good sales copy. This is why I often ask students, “What's the slogan or motto of your research?”

Giving all students a chance to study from 0 to 100
This is the weight of the tradition of the School of Engineering at Tohoku University

According to Associate Professor Suga, within the broad range of engineering fields, the characteristics of the Department of Applied Chemistry, Chemical Engineering and Biomolecular Engineering is that a wide variety of things can be studied and they can then be applied in an even wider variety of fields. He says, “In particular, those who choose chemical engineering must not only handle chemicals, but they also need to deal with machinery to measure and evaluate, process data using computers, and (depending on the field) know some biology. In other words, having the foundation of being able to do anything and having to do everything means one's career options naturally broaden.” Using the COVID-19 vaccine as an example, he explains the appeal of chemical engineering. “While such vaccines are developed by specialized researchers, a laboratory-scale research might only be able to produce a test-tube sized vaccine for half a person. To be able to supply vaccines to hundreds of millions of people worldwide, large-scale factories are needed. It's not simply a matter of making a reactor vessel larger. It is chemical engineering and manufacturing research that control all of these,” he says.

Associate Professor Suga says he feels the weight of history and tradition at Tohoku University's School of Engineering every day. He says, “Students have inherited the good points and strengths of the students who have come before them. The idea that 'Tohoku University students can do these kinds of things' is in itself a kind of role model. There is a system here that lets students spend a lot of time researching and studying – experiences which I feel allow them to acquire certain values only possible through such experiences. On their first day at university, everyone's at the starting line (at 0). Through friendly competition and diligent study, they all aim for a perfect score (100). We give all students a chance to study from 0 to 100, but we should let them figure out for themselves what constitutes a perfect score. Maybe this is the weight of 100 years of tradition. Learning a lot not only from successes but also from failures, and eventually succeeding by taking stock – this is what research is all about. Pursue what you think is interesting right then and there, beyond which lies a vision of your future. With that in mind, I hope we can all work in our research together.”