The research of Professor Teruyuki Komatsu (Faculty of Science and Engineering) recently graced the front page of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) website. The Royal Society of Chemistry, which has its roots in the London Chemistry Society founded in 1841, is Europe's largest chemistry society. In addition to playing a leading role in chemistry, the society's website carries news of outstanding research results selected from advanced research being conducted worldwide.

Nanotubes are created from carbon and are extremely thin hose-shaped tubes that cannot be seen with the naked eye. The tubes have a diameter that is approximately 1/50,000 of a human hair, and applications for these tubes have attracted attention in recent years.

Professor Komatsu has conducted research to create nanotubes from protein. Since these nanotubes use protein derived from the human body, it assumed safe to insert the tubes into humans, and expectations are high for application of such tubes in various medical fields. In his current research, Professor Komatsu was the first in the world to succeed in capturing target viruses by placing them within the tubes. Although the featured research was an experiment which targeted the hepatitis-B virus, it is believed that the same technique can be used to catch the influenza virus and HIV.

Professor Komatsu's research results were also listed on the web version of the Journal of the American Chemical Society, a journal published by the American Chemical Society (ACS).

Please view the following links if you would like more information.

• Link: Bioinorganic Chemistry-Komatsu Laboratory
• Link: Website news of the Royal Society of Chemistry
• Link: Website of the American Chemical Society