Takeharu Nagai 2014 International Biophysics Congress

Takeharu Nagai

Takeharu Nagai got PhD in 1998 from The University of Tokyo with the study concerning mammalian neural development, and then changed his work to engineering fluorescent protein after joining as a postdoc in Prof. Atsushi Miyawaki’s laboratory in Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, in which he developed representative fluorescent proteins including Venus (Nat Biotechnol 2002), cameleon3.60(PNAS 2004), pericam(PNAS 2001). He promoted as a professor of Hokkaido University in 2005, and further developed unique fluorescent protein such as Phamret (Nat Methods 2008), Sirius (Nat Methods 2009), Cameleon-Nano (Nat Methods 2010) , GECO (Science 2011) as well as the laser-less confocal microscope (CSF 2010), etc. In 2012, He moved to Osaka University, and is currently developing not only novel fluorescent protein including photoswichable fluorescent protein applicable to superresolution nanoscopy but also chemiluminescent protein for macroscopy, genetically encoded manipulation tools for physiological function and novel optical micro/nanoscope. His recent invention is Nano-lantern which enabled real time imaging of tumor tissue inside freely moving unshaved mouse (Nat Commun 2012).