My research subjects are design of smart (or intelligent) polymer gels and their application to biomedical and biomimetic fields. In addition to stimuli-responsive gels, in 1996, we have developed a novel self-oscillating gel which autonomously exhibits cyclic swelling-deswelling motion under constant conditions like heartbeat (JACS, 118 (1996), 5134). For these smart gels, application to artificial muscle, artificial organs, autonomous soft actuators, drug delivery systems (DDS), tissue engineering, biosensor, microfuildics, etc., has been attempted for creating a new field of gel science. And also, these smart gel systems would serve as a good model for the understanding of biochemical and biophysical phenomena, generally observed in living systems. My research should make an important contribution to current developing materials science and engineering in biomedical and biomimetic fields.

1) M. Onoda, T. Ueki, R. Tamate, M. Shibayama, and R. Yoshida : “Amoeba-like self-oscillating polymeric fluids with autonomous sol-gel transition”, Nature Communications, 8 (2017) 15862.
2) R. Tamate, T. Ueki and R. Yoshida : “Evolved colloidosomes undergoing cell-like autonomous shape oscillations with buckling”, Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 55 (2016) 5179-5183.
3) R. Tamate, T. Ueki and R. Yoshida : “Self-beating artificial cells: Design of cross-linked polymersomes showing self-oscillating motion”, Adv. Mater., 27 (2015), 837-842.