Integrated Calendar

Toshiya Endo is a professor of Faculty of Life Sciences, Kyoto Sangyo University. He received his PhD degree for his NMR study on snake neurotoxins at Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Faculty of Science, the University of Tokyo in 1982. He became an assistant professor at Department of Chemistry, College of Technology, Gunma University in 1982, was promoted to an associate professor of the same department in 1987, and then became an associate professor of Department of Biological and Chemical Engineering, Faculty of Engineering, Gunma University in 1989. In the meantime (1986-1988), he was a visiting scientist at Biocenter, the University of Basel, Switzerland, where he joined Jeff Schatz’s group to start his work on protein import into mitochondria. In 1989, he moved to Nagoya University to become a PI as an associate professor at Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, Nagoya University, and became a full professor in 1991 at the same department. In 1996, he became a professor of Department of Chemistry, Graduate School of Science, Nagoya University. In 2003-2008, he was a project-based faculty of the Institute for Advanced Research, Nagoya University. He had been the leader of the Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research in Priority Area from MEXT, ‘Protein Community’ (2007-2012), and now the recipient of the CREST grant from JST for 2012-2017. After research and education life for 24 years at Nagoya University, he recently moved to Kyoto Sangyo University in April 2014

In my talk I will discuss several recent research directions that we have taken to explore the different principles underlying the construction and control of complex human upper arm and gait movements. In these studies we combine experimental recordings of human movements with the development of mathematical models aiming at providing rigorous quantitative descriptions of human movement and investigating the underlying neural control strategies. One important topic I will focus on is motor compositionality, exploring the nature of the motor primitives underlying the construction of complex movements at different levels of the motor hierarchy and the topic of motor coordination and the mapping between different control levels. The second topic I will focus on is motion kinematics and timing, describing a series of behavioral and brain imaging studies demonstrating the strong coupling between motion production and perception. Finally, I will illustrate the application of the new gained understanding in studies of different neurological movement disorders.

ABSTRACT
During development, each cell must resolve its fate, shape and position. Revealing how these decisions are made is critical to understand how embryos form, yet their real time control in mammals is unknown. Because fixed specimens cannot capture in vivo cell dynamics, we use imaging technologies to study single cells directly in live mouse embryos. We recently combined fluorescence correlation spectroscopy and photoactivation to show how the transcription factors Oct4 and Sox2 bind to DNA to determine the first cell fates of the embryo. We also designed methods to study how cells regulate their mechanical properties, and how they reorganize their actin and microtubule cytoskeletons to establish the first forms of tissue architecture. We discovered a new class of filopodia which helps cells to polarize and achieve embryo compaction, a role for cortical tension in driving the formation of the pluripotent inner mass, and a new type of non-centrosomal microtubule organizing center (MTOC) directing intracellular transport and differentiation in the embryo.