Research Activity

Associate Professor

TONAMI, Hiroyuki

E-mail (@oit.ac.jp)hiroyuki.tonami

Nanomedicine lab:Polymer chemistry and medical engineering

Advanced technology can contribute to solving difficult problems in the field of medicine. One topic of our research is the fabrication of prosthetic venous valves, using electrospinning, for percutaneous treatment of chronic venous insufficiency (CVI). Nanofiber scaffolds produced by electrospinning are useful for fabricating fibrous biomaterials because the size of their fibers is similar to that of the fibers that make up the extracellular matrix of native tissues and organs. Thus, electrospinning has great potential in the field of tissue engineering. Some other topics we study include protein transduction into cells, to control cell behavior and differentiation, and the synthesis of polyphenols by enzymatic polymerization. These polyphenols are transducted into cells in a manner similar to that of proteins, which facilitates their use in novel methods for controlling cell behavior and differentiation. We hope to contribute to human health by merging advanced technology and medicine, as described above.