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Cell Function Design Lab
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The lab designs interactions between cells to explore how tissues form.
AboutAbout the lab
Designing and synthesizing cell functions.
The Cell Function Design Lab studies how cells build complex tissues and organs, and how functions of cell populations, such as maintaining homeostasis and regeneration, arise.
By freely designing the rules of interaction between cells and examining the behavior of cell populations, the lab aims to understand how tissues form and to develop new tissue engineering technologies.
Using the approach of synthetic biology, which artificially creates life functions seen in living organisms, the lab conducts research with cultured cells and molecular biology techniques.
The lab also works on developing new therapies based on manipulating cell-cell interactions.
Key terms
- Synthetic biology
- A research field that designs the necessary molecules and cells, implements them in cells, and artificially creates and tests life functions
- Morphogen
- A secreted factor that diffuses during development to form a concentration gradient and spatially controls cell differentiation according to its concentration
- synNotch
- A synthetic receptor that lets cells control each other's gene expression. It can create artificial cell-cell interactions in mammalian cells
- Cell-based therapeutics
- Cells that recognize the environment in the body, produce therapeutic factors locally, and act as a drug in diseased tissue
NewsLab news
Associate Professor Toda received the Japanese Biochemical Society's Encouragement Award for FY2026 (Reiwa 8)
Paper from a joint study with Kanazawa University published in Nano Letters
Associate Professor Toda received the Osaka University Award for FY2025 (Reiwa 7)
Japanese-language review on synNotch-based cell therapeutics published in Rinsho Meneki Arerugi-ka (Clinical Immunology and Allergy)
Japanese-language review on reconstituting morphogen signaling published in Seikagaku
ResearchResearch themes
The lab uses synthetic biology to investigate what kinds of interactions allow cells to build complex tissue structures. It develops molecular tools that make cells interact with each other as intended, and "synthesizes" tissue structures and functions in cultured cells to study them.
*Illustrative imageBuilding multilayered structures with cell adhesion
Using the synthetic receptor synNotch, the lab designed a cell-cell signaling circuit that regulates the amount of the cell adhesion molecule cadherin. This made cells arrange themselves spontaneously in regular patterns and produced various multilayered structures.
*Illustrative imageDesigning patterns with synthetic morphogens
The lab developed a synthetic morphogen system in which GFP, a fluorescent molecule with no physiological function, acts as a morphogen. Using a circuit in which cells secrete and receive GFP, the lab analyzed the principles controlling the shape and dynamics of the gradient.
*Illustrative imageArtificially building self-growing tissues
Guided by questions such as how lumens and protrusions form, how irregularities are corrected, and how tissue size is kept constant, the lab aims to clarify the cell-cell interactions that produce complex, dynamic multicellular structures, and to design tissue structures at will.
*Illustrative imageDeveloping cell-based therapeutics
The lab designs cells that recognize cells in the body and take some action. It aims to develop cell-based therapeutics that recognize disease-related cells and damaged tissue and promote tissue regeneration or suppress inflammation.
MembersFaculty
The members of the Cell Function Design Lab consist of faculty, postdoctoral researchers, doctoral and master's students, administrative assistants, and technical assistants.As of 2026
- Associate ProfessorSatoshi Toda
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Synthetic Biology Research at NASA Ames” Alexander van Dijk from San Francisco, United States / CC BY 2.0 (cropped)
- Building multilayered structures with cell adhesion: “Epithelzellen3325” Mkaercher / CC BY-SA 3.0 (cropped)
- Designing patterns with synthetic morphogens: “Pattern formation 3” Jobsarayutw / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Artificially building self-growing tissues: “SEM micrograph of influenza A virions infecting primary human airway organoid cultures showing differentiated cilia” Phage1990 / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Developing cell-based therapeutics: “Healthy Human T Cell” NIAID/NIH / Public domain (cropped)
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