What is your dream?

Takayuki Nakamuro, Project Associate Professor, Department of Chemistry

When I came to my senses, I had become an independent adult. On the other hand, it is precisely because I am now an adult that I can see reality, and I am somewhat afraid to speak out loud about my dreams. In the first place, I am so busy in my daily life that there are days when I am troubled by the fact that I don't have time to imagine even my own near future. That is why I think it is cool and respectful for adults to be able to share their dreams with others. Since I was given the opportunity to write this article, I decided to think a little about "my dream. I hope you will think about your own dreams, too.

When I was in junior high school and high school, my dream was "to develop new drugs and help people in need. This dream may have started from my experience of losing my family to illness, or from the fact that I was born in Toyama, a town known for its medicines. When he was assigned to a research laboratory, he became interested in synthetic pharmaceuticals and went on to study synthetic organic chemistry. However, even though I worked hard on the development of elementary reactions, which is like developing one step in the synthesis of pharmaceuticals, I could not see any pharmaceuticals at all. Although I felt like I had learned the reality of ideals and reality, I do not regret it because I enjoyed the development of elementary reactions. In fact, I was able to work every day on exciting experiments that only I knew about, and the experience of thinking about science is an asset that I have now. Before I knew it, my dream was to develop a reaction that would appear in textbooks, but I have yet to present the "Nakamuro reaction" to the world.

After receiving my degree, I was fortunate enough to be transferred to the University of Tokyo, where I made a fresh start as an electron microscope (electron microscope) scientist. Thanks to the help of those around me, I am now able to take black-and-white electron microscope images by myself. My interest in pharmaceuticals remained in a corner of my mind, and I was conducting electron microscopy experiments to observe the dynamics of cyclic peptides, which are representative of middle-molecular drugs. At that time, I found a structure that really shined! It turned out later to be a microcrystal of sodium chloride (NaCl), but I still remember rushing into my living room to tell my students how excited I was. Blessed with talented students, I was able to publish not only the result in an academic paper but also an educational article for junior and senior high school students as "I caught the moment when crystals were formed! I was extremely fortunate to be able to develop this work into an educational video for junior and senior high school students as "I captured the moment the crystals formed!

I am about to enter my fifth year of electron microscopy research. My current dream is to "surprise the world with electron microscope images. I believe that I have been able to share the excitement of cutting-edge science with the world through my electron microscopy experiments on salt crystallization. I think that the world has become convenient because the above-mentioned educational video can be viewed from a smartphone. On the other hand, it is undeniable that these videos lack impact compared to other contents provided by smartphones, but the fact that we can now see atoms that were previously elusive is a significant development. It will be my future task to add color to electron microscopy so that children can feel the "fun of science. I dream of discovering findings that will someday appear in textbooks, and of the young generation that will open up an unexpected world of science through their interest in electron microscope images.

Although anything can happen in life, I am learning day and night at the Department of Chemistry, Faculty of Science, the importance of pursuing what you want to do (your dream).

Exploring New Worlds with Transmission Electron Microscopy