Activities of the BEANS Laboratory

Recent Media Coverage on the BEANS Project
Society of Chemistry NEWS, October 2010; 5) Foreign press:
America’s ABC News, “Glowing Beads,” October 2010; 6)
Online article: Medical Design and Manufacturing
Technology, Canon Communications.

This article focuses on activities in the BEANS Project thathave been covered by newspapers, journals, and other media
since the summer of 2010. The Japanese and foreign press haveshown interest primarily in our achievements in biotechnology.
The work by Associate Professor Shoji Takeuchi, director of theLife BEANS Center, on robots with a sense of smell andimplantable blood sugar sensors has been making the rounds
through various media outlets this past autumn. The following
is some of the media coverage that we at the head office havenoted thus far.

Research Achievements
Incorporating cell-based olfactory sensors in robots: anachievement of Shoji Takeuchi, associate professor at theUniversity of Tokyo and director of the Life BEANS Center,
researcher Nobuo Misawa, et al. An article on this achievement
was published in the prestigious Proceedings of the National
Academy of Sciences (PNAS) of the United States of America
and was covered extensively in Japan. A list of the media
coverage for the achievement is given below.

Research achievements at the Life BEANS Center: theUniversity of Tokyo and Mitsubishi Chemical Medience reported
on the Center’s success in developing a technique forfabricating bile canaliculi, p.11 of Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun,12/6/2010.
On August 27, 2010, Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun published anarticle linked to Koji Miyazaki, associate professor at theKyushu Institute of Technology and member of Life BEANS
Kyushu, entitled “Thermoelectric materials that generate
electricity through a small temperature difference, and theirapplications in wearable electronics.”

Intellectual Property
1) NHK TV, Good Morning, Japan, 9/24/2010; 2) NHK TV,
NHK’s six o’clock news, 9/24/2010; 3) TV Tokyo, World Business
Satellite, 9/10/2010; 4) Nihon Keizai Shimbun, 8/24/2010,morning edition; 5) Nikkei Sangyo Shimbun, 8/24/2010, morningedition; 6) Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun, 8/24/2010, morningedition; 7) Tokyo Shimbun, 8/24/2010, morning edition; 8)
Yomiuri Shimbun, 8/24/2010, evening edition; 9) Mainichi
Shimbun, 8/24/2010, evening edition; 10) Asahi Shimbun,9/3/2010; 11) The Chemical Daily, 8/24/2010; 12) Online article:
Medical Design and Manufacturing Technology, CanonCommunications; 13) Foreign press: TechNewsDaily; 14)
Foreign press: Reuters; 15) Foreign press: New Scientist Tech;
16) Foreign press: the Brazilian newspaper Folha De S. Paulo,
8/24/2010; 17) Overseas scientific journal: Nature Materials,8/23/2010, Research Highlights; 18) Overseas scientific journal:
Nature Materials, October 2010, Vol. 9, p.78, “Oocytes asSensors,” PNAS, 107, 15340–15344 (2010); 19) Overseas
scientific journal: the article “Olfactory Sensor” was selected forPopular Science’s Best of What’s New 2010 under the “Security”
category, 11/22/2010; 20) Radio broadcast: NHK World RadioJapan, 9/20/2010, 14:10–14:30; 21) General magazine: DIME,no. 21, October 2010 (Shogakukan).
Developing an implantable blood sugar sensor: Shoji
Takeuchi, associate professor at the University of Tokyo
a n d director of the Life BEANS Center, et al. After its
announcement in January 2010, this blood sugar sensor
c a u g h t the attention of the foreign press at Exhibition
Micromachine/MEMS and became prominent in the news once
again when the achievement was covered in America’s PNAS.
1) YouTube, DigInfo video news, 7/29/2010; 2) Nihon Keizai
Shimbun, 10/5/2010, morning edition; 3) Nikkei Sangyo
Shimbun, 10/5/2010; 4) Overseas scientific journal: RoyalThe BEANS Project was recognized by Nikkan Kogyo
Shimbun on 9/17/2010 for its pioneering efforts in the creationof intellectual property in an article entitled “Supportingintellectual property through cooperation among differentdisciplines.”

Researchers
Two non-Japanese female researchers involved in theBEANS Project were profiled in the media.
•Khumpuang Sommawan, a researcher at Macro BEANS Center,
was profiled in Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun October 15, 2010 in anarticle entitled “New technology research that transcendsborders.” After completing her undergraduate degree at Chiang
Mai University in Thailand, Sommawan obtained a master’s
degree at the University of Bristol and a doctorate at Ritsumeikan
University. She also worked at the University of Freiburg inGermany prior to participating in the BEANS Project.
•Heo Yun-Jung, a researcher at Life BEANS Center, received anexcellent paper award for young researcher at the 27th Sensor
Symposium on Sensors, Micromachines, and Applied Systems.
Yun-Jung graduated from the Korea Advanced Institute of
Science and Technology (KAIST) in South Korea and received
her doctorate at the University of Tokyo.

Khumpuang Sommawan

6Heo Yun-Jung