During my master period when I was a graduate student of Agriculture in Kita-shirakawa, Kyoto, I had an opportunity to come to Uji. "Seeing is not always believing unless there is theoretical basis" is the best thing I learned here.

Keeping this in mind, I have been and would like to continue research works covering the formation, structure and function of cell wall polysaccharides. Recently I am also interested in biomechanical issues to understand how a tree mechanically stabilizes its body. Such structural and functional information would be a key for development of new biomass-based nano-composites (I am hoping so!).

Aside from this, knowing tree names makes working more pleasant. With a binocular you may find fruits and flowers in unexpected place. From such pleasure, my group collects wood samples annually in collaboration with a team at Forestry and Forest Product Research Laboratory, Tsukuba. This is promoted by the framework of Domestic Cooperative Project (RISH Database), aiming to improve our skills to identify, collect, and register wood samples in our Xylarium. Other related projects, such as "Comprehensive Database of Timers from Historically Important Buildings", "Mechanism of Aging", " Wood Usage and Japanese Culture" are all on going. I have an impression that the skills of wood identification and its education would be quite demanded.

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