The department aims to investigate “Materials and Life” in nature (= Science), to create new materials, to recycle resources, and to develop new properties and functions. With the focus on specialties such as physics, chemistry, biology, environmental science, and materials engineering, students learn existing disciplines through a comprehensive and cross-disciplinary approach. The program provides a specialized education that aims for cross-disciplinary knowledge through the fusion of science and engineering based on examining the fundamentals of materials. This ranges from atomic/macromolecular materials to biological phenomena, with the key themes of Substances and Nanotechnology, Harmonization between the Environment and Life, and Creation of Highly Functional Materials.
Through the Departmental Core Courses and laboratory classes on materials and life, students acquire the ability to contribute to the creation of substances ranging from atoms or molecules to polymers and biomolecules. The laboratory classes feature flexible and step-by-step programs. Students conduct basic experiments in physics, chemistry, and biology (colored in red), then step up to Department Specialized Courses (colored in green), and proceed to graduation research (colored in blue) through Research Trials (practical laboratory experience course).
The aim of the program is for students to acquire “combined intelligence,” which is the integration of physics, chemistry, biology, environmental science, and other disciplines while focusing on a certain area of expertise. The first year, students take General Courses and in the second year, they begin to study materials and life sciences and conduct experiments and exercises in various fields. In the third and fourth years, students study courses from three themes (Group A to C) intersecting the academic disciplines, and classes are chosen from three academic disciplines: Chemistry & Applied Chemistry, Environmental & Life Sciences, and Materials & Molecular Sciences, enabling students to focus on their choice of fields.
as of 2026
* For further information on the courses, please refer to the Syllabus.
Students will learn how to synthesize organic compounds, which is considered useful for developing pharmaceuticals and other products, with heteroatom-derived characteristics, reactivity, and functional properties.
Students learn how to artificially synthesize organic compounds produced in nature with various biological activities and complex structures.
This course introduces soft materials such as liquid crystals, gels, and surfactants, which exhibit intermediate characteristics between solids and liquids, and their unique features in relation to their chemical structures and physical states.
Students will deepen their knowledge of genetic engineering, focusing on plant tissue culturing, transgenic technology, development of genetically modified plants, and ongoing safety and technical issues.
Diverse living species that inhabit the earth today have evolved while adapting to their environment. This course focuses on how these species emerged and their evolutionary process in relation to their genes.
This course focuses on microorganisms that have multiple metabolic pathways despite their simple structure and genomes, their ability to produce substances, and metabolic processes that are useful for environmental management and human life, as well as applications of microorganisms.
Curatorial Courses are also available.
To have students learn academic subjects, such as physics, chemistry, biology, environmental science, and materials science, in an interdisciplinary manner, understand the fundamentals of atoms, molecules, macromolecules, and materials related to natural phenomena, and improve their ability to apply and practice what they have learned.
To develop human resources who have new perspectives of materials and life sciences and can work toward the sustainable integration of the global environment with science and technology, so that they can contribute to creating materials and technologies on the basis of new concepts.
The Department of Materials and Life Sciences aims to foster human resources with integrated knowledge based on a broad perspective and a sense of life and materials harmonized with nature. With a view to this aim, the Department sets standards for the skills and knowledge students should acquire before graduation as described below. Those who have fulfilled the requirements and have passed the thesis defense will be awarded a diploma.
In accordance with the Diploma Policy, the Department of Materials and Life Sciences constructs its curriculum as follows:
The Department of Materials and Life Sciences seeks students with the potential to contribute to the unraveling of various phenomena of the natural sciences as well as technological development and the creation of new materials. We seek students interested in the harmonization of nature and science and technology and motivated to build new visions of materials and life that fit well with nature:
Toyonobu USUKI Professor
Hiroshi UCHIDA Professor
Kunihiro OKADA Professor
Takeshi ODAGIRI Professor
Nobuyuki KANZAWA Professor
Yoshikazu KIKAWADA Professor
Nobuhiko KUZE Professor
Jiro KONDO Professor
Tamao SAITO Professor
Noriyuki SUZUKI Professor
Yumiko SUZUKI Professor
Kazuo TAKAHASHI Professor
Yuko TAKEOKA Professor
Hirotaka NAGAO Professor
Shinkoh NAMBU Professor
Takeshi HASHIMOTO Professor
Kensuke HAYASHI Professor
Masahiro FUJITA Professor
Makoto FUJIWARA Professor
Masamitsu HOSHINO Professor
Satoshi HORIKOSHI Professor
Masahiro RIKUKAWA Professor
Shigeki YASUMASU Special Contract Professor
Mari KAWAGUCHI Associate Professor
Nobuhiro SUZUKI Associate Professor
Kunihito TANAKA Associate Professor
Seba FUYUTSUKI Associate Professor
Tomoyo MISAWA Associate Professor
Tetsuo YASUGI Associate Professor
Yukie YOKOTA Associate Professor
Myra VILLAREAL Assistant Professor by Special Appointment
Tania PENAFLOR Assistant Professor by Special Appointment
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