10th Anniversary Issue: Japan

Yoshinobu Baba

Dr Yoshinobu Baba is currently a Professor at the Department of Applied Chemistry, Nagoya University and also a Director of FIRST Research Center for Innovative Nanobiodevice, Nagoya University. He serves over 20 scientific journals, including Nanoscale and Biomicrofluidics, as an editorial board member. He has been a general chair of numerous international meetings (μTAS 2002, MSB 2005, NanoBioEXPO 2010, etc.). He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry and has received numerous awards for his contributions in nanobiotechnology. His major area of interest is nanobioscience and nanobiotechnology for omics, systems biology, medical diagnosis, tissue engineering, and bio-imaging. He is the author or co-author of 658 publications, including peer-reviewed scientific papers, proceedings, reviews, and books. He has delivered more than 602 plenary and invited lectures at conferences. His work has been cited on 259 occasions by newspapers and television.

Japan's first lab on a chip (LOC) papers were published over two decades ago by two groups: one¹ from Hitachi's Yuji Miyahara and Andreas Manz, who worked at Hitachi at that time, and another² from Tohoku University's Shuichi Shoji and Masayoshi Esashi. Both were published just before the concept of μTAS was proposed.³ During the past two decades, Japanese researchers have made tremendous contributions in the field of LOC, creating and developing numerous LOC technologies as well as being involved in the launch of the μTAS conference and Lab on a Chip.

In the early 90's, a small number of Japanese groups, which were inspired by these papers,^1–3 started to investigate LOC related research. As the Japanese government has continuously supported LOC related research through numerous national projects from the mid 90's, and in 2000 CHEMINAS (Society for Chemistry and Micro-Nano Systems) was launched to encourage the interdisciplinary collaboration and organization of μTAS meetings in Japan, the number of LOC research groups in Japan quickly increased and areas of Japanese LOC research have been expanding a tremendous variety of fields, including biomedicine, pharmaceuticals, regenerative medicine, fuel cells, green cars, chemical processes, etc. After successful organization of the μTAS meetings in Nara (2002) and Tokyo (2006), Japan, over 150 papers from Japan are accepted and presented at the μTAS meetings every year.

We have featured five papers in this issue, from a new type of microfluidics to the latest applications of single molecule enzymatic assay, singe cell detection, point-of-care immunoassay, and fusion of supramolecules and microfluidics. Although it is by no means possible to cover in this single special issue all of the exciting developments made in the fields of LOC and microfluidics in Japan, I hope this issue gives us “a crystal ball” for looking into the future of LOC research in Japan.

As the guest editor of this special issue, I would like to thank all the contributors and the reviewers for their valuable contributions which will certainly impact the area of LOC by providing a better understanding of the underlying phenomena and by widening the scope of their applications. I also greatly appreciate the efforts of the Editor and the team at the RSC for their encouragement and support for this Japanese Special Issue.

Yoshinobu Baba

Nagoya University

References

1. A. Manz, Y. Miyahara, et al., Japanese Patent 2585390, 1988; A. Manz and Y. Miyahara, et al. , Sens. Actuators, 1990, B1, 249–255.
2. S. Shoji and M. Esashi, et al. , Sens. Actuators, 1988, 14, 101–107; S. Shoji and M. Esashi, et al. , Sens. Actuators, 1990, A21, 189–192.
3. A. Manz, et al. , Sens. Actuators, 1990, B1, 244–248.

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