Project Associate Professor

Takefumi YAMASHITA

PROFILE

2004-    PhD, School of Science, Kyoto University
2004-     Postdoctoral Researcher, School of Arts and Sciences, The University of Tokyo (UTokyo)
2007-    Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Chemistry, University of Utah
2010-    Postdoctoral Researcher, Department of Chemistry, University of Chicago
2011-    Project Associate Professor, RCAST, UTokyo

FIELD OF INTEREST

At the molecular level, biological phenomena can be regarded as a complicated but well-designed network of reactions including not only chemical bond alternation, but also the structural change or docking of proteins. Deterioration, of even just a single element of the network may lead to a wide variety of diseases, including cancer. Therefore, it is important to understand and predict the molecular mechanisms that lead to or prevent the deterioration of the network. We study the behavior of biological molecules related to serious diseases at the molecular level by using theoretical calculations, mainly in molecular dynamics simulations. We aim to extract information essential for drug design from those calculations. Also we are developing a new method for estimating critical properties based on basic physics and theoretical chemistry.


PUBLICATION