Keynote Speakers

Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki
Dr. Atsushi Miyawaki
Keynote1 Cruising inside X
Prof. Toshio Fukuda
Toshio Fukuda.
Keynote2 Simulation Based Medicine
for Endovascular Micro Surgery


Dr. Atsushi MiyawakiDr. Atsushi Miyawaki MD, PhD, is Laboratory Head of RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics and of RIKEN Brain Science Institute.
His scientific and clinical work focuses on Bioimaging

Atsushi Miyawaki received the MD from Keio University in 1987, and the PhD from Osaka University in 1991. He started to work as Research Fellow at the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science in 1991, and in the following 1993, he became Assistant Professor in the Institute of Medicine Science at the University of Tokyo. In 1995, he joined the University of California San Diego. He became Laboratory Head and Group Directory of RIKEN Brain Science Institute in 1999, Guest Professor of the University of Tokyo in 2005, Guest Professor of the National Institute of Natural Sciences in 2006, Research Director of ERATO Life Function Dynamics Project, Japan Science and Technology Agency in 2006, and Deputy Director of BSI Olympus Collaboration Center in 2007. Currently, he is Laboratory Head of RIKEN Brain Science Institute since 1999 and of RIKEN Center for Advanced Photonics since 2013. He is also Deputy Director of Deputy Director of RIKEN Brain Science Institute since 2008 and Director of BSI Olympus Collaboration Center since 2010. He is Visiting Professor of Waseda University since 2007, Keio University since 2009, and Toho University since 2010.


Dr. Miyawaki enjoys an outstanding national and international scientific reputation. He has received numerous honors and awards, including the 4th Yamazaki-Teiichi Prize Winner Biological Science & Technology (2004), Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Prize (2006), Harvard University, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Woodward Visiting Scholar (2006), Tsukahara Nakaakira Award (2007), Keio University Sanshikai Kitazato Award (2007), and the Commendation for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (2008). In 2012, he received the Inouze Prize for Science. And the Fujiwara Award was awarded to him in 2013.

Keynote1 Cruising inside X

The behavior of biochemical molecules moving around in cells makes me think of a school of whales wandering in the ocean, captured by the Argus system on the artificial satellite. When bringing a whale back into the sea --- with a transmitter on its dorsal fin, every staff member hopes that it will return safely to a school of its species. A transmitter is now minute in size, but it was not this way before. There used to be some concern that a whale fitted with a transmitter could be given the cold shoulder and thus ostracized by other whales for "wearing something annoying." How is whale's wandering related to the tide or a shoal of small fish? What kind of interaction is there among different species of whales? We human beings have attempted to fully understand this fellow creature in the sea both during and since the age of whale fishing.

In a live cell imaging experiment, a fluorescent probe replaces a transmitter. We label a fluorescent probe on a specific region of a biological molecule and bring it back into a cell. We can then visualize how the biological molecule behaves in response to external stimulation. Since fluorescence is a physical phenomenon, we can extract various kinds of information by making full use of its characteristics. For example, the excited energy of a fluorescent molecule donor transfers to an acceptor relative to the distance and orientation between the two fluorophores. This phenomenon can be used to identify interaction between biological molecules or structural change in biological molecules. Besides, we can apply all other characteristics of fluorescence, such as polarization, quenching, photobleaching, photoconversion, and photochromism, in experimentation.

Cruising inside cells in a supermicro corps, gliding down in a microtubule like a roller coaster, pushing our ways through a jungle of chromatin while hoisting a flag of nuclear localization signal --- we are reminded to retain a playful and adventurous perspective at all times. What matters is mobilizing all capabilities of science and giving full play to our imagination. We believe that such serendipitous findings can arise out of such a sportive mind, a frame of mind that prevails when enjoying whale-watching.



Prof. Toshio FukudaToshio Fukuda. Institute for Advanced Research Nagoya University,
Meijo University, Beijing Institute of Technology


Toshio Fukuda received the B.A. degree from Waseda University, Tokyo, Japan, in 1971, and the M.S and Dr. Eng. from the University of Tokyo, Tokyo, Japan, in 1973 and 1977, respectively.
In 1977, he joined the National Mechanical Engineering Laboratory. In 1982, he joined the Science University of Tokyo, Japan, and then joined Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan, in 1989. He was Director of Center for Micro-Nano Mechatronics and Professor of Department of Micro-Nano Systems Engineering at Nagoya University, where he was mainly involved in the research fields of intelligent robotic and mechatronic system, cellular robotic system, and micro- and nano-robotic system. He was the Russell Springer Chaired Professor at UC Berkeley, Distinguished Professor, Seoul National University, and many other universities. Currently, He is Professor Emeritus Nagoya University, Visiting Professor Institute for Advanced Research Nagoya University, Professor Meijo University, Professor Beijing Institute of Technology.
Dr. Fukuda is IEEE Region 10 Director (2013-2014) and served President of IEEE Robotics and Automation Society (1998-1999), Director of the IEEE Division X, Systems and Control (2001- 2002), and Editor-in-Chief of IEEE / ASME Transactions on Mechatronics (2000-2002). He was President of IEEE Nanotechnology Council (2002-2003, 2005) and President of SOFT (Japan Society for Fuzzy Theory and Intelligent Informatics) (2003-2005). He was elected as a member of Science Council of Japan (2008-). He received the IEEE Eugene Mittelmann Award (1997), IEEE Millennium Medal (2000), Humboldt Research Prize (2002), IEEE Robotics and Automation Pioneer Award (2004), IEEE Robotics and Automation Society Distinguished Service Award (2005), Award from Ministry of Education and Science in Japan (2005). IEEE Nanotechnology Council Distinguished service award (2007). Best Googol Application paper awards from IEEE Trans. Automation Science and Engineering (2007). Best papers awards from RSJ (2004) and SICE (2007), Special Funai Award from JSME (2008), 2009 George Saridis Leadership Award in Robotics and Automation (2009), IEEE Robotics and Automation Technical Field Award (2010), ROBOMECH Award 2010 (2010), Distinguished Service Award, The Robotics Society of Japan (2010), The Society of Instrument and Control Engineers Technical Field Award (2010), JSME Medal for Distinguished Engineers/ Outstanding Paper (2011), IROS Harashima Award for Innovative Technologies (2011), Friendship Award of Liaoning Province PR China (2012), IEEE Fellow (1995), SICE Fellow (1995), JSME Fellow (2001), RSJ Fellow (2004), Honorary Doctor of Aalto University School of Science and Technology (2010).

Keynote2 Simulation Based Medicine for Endovascular Micro Surgery

There have been so many robotic surgery systems developed so far, one of which is the Da Vincci Robotic System that is the most successful in the business market. Most robotic surgery systems are remotely controlled devices and systems and so the quality of the surgery heavily depends on the skill of the operators. Thus simulation is so important and necessary that medical doctors can have skillful training to operate those robotic systems and to understand and make the operation with confidence.
To this purpose, there are mainly two simulation methods developed in this field so far, such as virtual reality model based and physical model based methods. There are some comparisons between them, such as advantages and dis-advantages.
We have been developing an endovascular micro surgery system and also an evaluation simulation system, whether the surgery performance is good for human doctor and/or robotics system. This simulator, Endovascular Evaluator (EVE) is made by the micro technology using the CT data of patients in the brain and other organs. It turned out to be very efficient and useful for evaluating the skill of medical doctors and also important to develop different catheter devices as well as stents and flow diverters. It can also be used for medical applications to make the aneurysm developing process scientifically clear.


Endvascular Evaluator (EVE)