Learning from Living Organisms
Living organisms are composed of a variety of functional molecules with specific structures and activities, which react with biological macromolecules such as proteins and nucleic acids to adjust and regulate vital functions. In order to clarify the most complex phenomena of life, it will be necessary to discover new biological molecules and investigate their chemical synthesis and mechanisms of bioactivities at the molecular level. To improve our understanding of the concept of life, it is important to elucidate the intracellular dynamics of biological macromolecules in addition to understanding of their chemical properties. The goals in this research field are to learn diligently from life, to discover biologically important functional molecules and elucidate their chemical structures, to develop chemical syntheses for new biological materials, and to examine structure-activity correlations of these active molecules in the living organisms. Furthermore, by applying a chemical viewpoint to the investigation of the intracellular functions of biological macromolecules and the basis of their intracellular dynamics, our basic understanding of the living organisms as complex chemical systems can be improved.