Application for Academy Center Certification
World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
Host Institution

Tokyo Institute of Technology

Research Center

Earth-Life Science Institute

Host Institution HeadKazuya Masu

Center DirectorYasuhito Sekine

Administrative Director

Kei Kurita

Please prepare this application based on the content of your Center’s progress report and the progress plan you submitted for the Center’s
final evaluation. Summarize the Center’s future plans with regard to the following 8 items within five A-4 pages. (Also fill out theappendices at the end of this form.)

1. Overall Image of Your Center* Describe the Center’s overall image including its identity.

“How did our planet, Earth, form in the Solar System? How did we, Earth’s life, emerge on thisplanet?” – These are fundamental and universal questions that people all over the world might raise
once and that ELSI has been tackling since its establishment. ELSI was originally established topromote interdisciplinary researches among astronomy, Earth and planetary sciences, chemistry,complexity science, and life science, and to play an international leading role in solving thesefundamental questions. With the high interdisciplinarity and internationality, ELSI has also beenpromoting administrative innovation and organizational excellence among universities in Japan.
Implementing and promoting “science”, “fusion”, “globalization”, and “reform” will continue to be
ELSI’s (and WPI’s) missions in the WPI Academy framework. ELSI’s outstanding characteristics arethat it covers a truly wide range of disciplines, including all pure natural sciences of physics,chemistry, Earth science, and life science, by scientists gathering under one roof.
2. Mid- to Long-term Research Objectives and Strategies* Describe new challenges in the Center’s research objectives and plans after FY2022.

In the first 10 years, ELSI provided the view of the sequence of diversifications and filter
selections toward the current Earth-Life system (called “ELSI model”; Fig. 1). However, at the sametime, this raises new fundamental questions. Are there alternative planet-life systems in theuniverse? Are there any other paths to reach to emergences of lives? If we find lifeless planets, how
can we characterize them and what can we learn from them? Earth is the only one planet that weknow the existence of life. Revealing of the origin of life on Earth may be more like the study of one
specific history. The origin-of-life science can be Universal Biology only after understanding thepossibilities of emergence of alternative lives and lifeless planets in the ELSI model.
The sequence shown in Fig. 1 is irreversible, and factual evidence for large parts of key
transitions that occurred on primitive Earth has been lost. On the other hand, we are now startingto know that there are multiple planetary bodies that experienced similar sequential evolution, but
the evolution has stopped or dramatically slowed down. These bodies include Mars, C-type
asteroids, and icy ocean worlds in the Solar System. Thus, future space explorations to these bodies
could provide factual evidence for the key transitions in the diversifications and filter selections.

Tokyo Institute of Technology - 1
Earth-Life Science InstituteFig. 1. ELSI’s new framework developed in the first 10 years. The origin of the Earth-Life system
can be understood as a sequence of diversifications and filter selections from formation of astar and planets to modern biosphere.

After the first 10 years, we will tackle the new fundamental questions. While keeping existing
approaches in ELSI to understand the emergence of our Earth-Life system, we will newly try tounderstand the possibilities of alternative planet-life systems to exist anywhere in the universe. The
latter approach requires institutional collaborations inside and outside Japan (e.g., JAXA, NASA,NAOJ, and JAMSTEC). ELSI will try to be an incubator for space missions and ground-based
observatories through providing conceptual foundations. In other words, ELSI will provide aprogram of hypothesis-driven missions and observations with Japanese and international missiondesign agencies. Through the existing and new approaches, we attempt to construct a concept ofuniversal biology , in which we can characterize life on Earth, or ourselves, in a wide range ofparameters of planet-life systems.
In our next decade, we would focus on tackling the following research themes. In one, we try to
predict organic and geochemical networks in planetary environments (1. Organic andgeochemical networks on planets). By combining knowledges on geodynamic circulation andhydrogeochemical cycles, we will construct general models of chemical cycling of bioessentialelements and nutrients on planets. Plus, through collaborations with organic chemistry, systems
chemistry, and catalytic chemistry, we will investigate possibilities of networks of proto-metabolism
and chemical evolution on planetary bodies with different geological settings. These would be abottom-up approach to predict a diversity and selectivity of functional polymers and molecules.
In the other, we will develop synthetic and theoretical biology in planetary contexts (2.
Synthetic and theoretical biology in space). Through collaborations between synthetic biology,
astronomy, and planetary sciences, we will perform artificial evolution experiments under changing
planetary environments. Considering early Mars and Hadean Earth, planetary habitableenvironments in those systems could have evolved more dynamically than the present-day Earth.
With combinations of network theory, geophysics, and astronomy, we will predict changes in thesize and complexity of biogeochemical networks in response to environmental changes.
These researches will be done by in-house/institutional collaborations among astronomy,geoscience, chemistry, and life science, and will maximize science values of space missions andtelescope observations planned by mission-operation agencies.

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Earth-Life Science Institute3. Management System of the Research Organization* Describe the system of organizational management via which the center will execute the above-described research strategy and plan.
* In Appendix 1-3, list the Principal Investigators, enter the number of center personnel (researchers, research-support staff, andadministrative staff), and provide a diagram of the Center’s organizational management system.

While keeping the research diversity and interdisciplinarity in the next decade, ELSI needs tomake one compact and effective research network within the institute. To this end, the roles of PIs,
associate PIs (A-PIs), researchers, and students need to be clarified in ELSI’s organization. PI’s
responsibilities are to anchor core research themes with long-term programs, to acquire stable
funding to support junior researchers and students as well as experimental facilities, to manage theeducation program, and to facilitate collaborations and joint projects across themes. Fixed-term APIs and researchers are engines of innovation. A-PI’s responsibilities are to be key bridges acrossdisciplines. A significant criterion in hiring A-PIs is their ability to work in/with projects in more than
one theme area, to expand diversity and originality of research topics, to provide flexibility andinterdisciplinarity to ELSI research, and to maintain exchange and collaboration within Japan andinternationally. Through co-supervision by PIs and A-PIs, graduate students can be actual bridges toconnect PIs and A-PIs, making one research network in the institute.
In addition to these existing categories, a new category of Science Coordinator will becreated to achieve effectiveness and efficiency in research and institutional development. TheScience Coordinator will make one research network in a compact ELSI. This Science Coordinator
will be the person who oversees all the research taking place at ELSI and uses all available
information to promote fusions among PIs and A-PIs. to acquire large grant and support fromindustries, and to develop institutional collaborations inside and outside Japan. In addition to theScience Coordinator, the Director and Administrative Director will actively participate in suchdevelopment roles.
4. Plan for Promoting the International Circulation of World’s Best Brains* Describe your policy and concrete plan for promoting the international circulation of the world’s best brains, which is an importantfunction of the WPI Academy.

Policy: Director and Science Coordinators will take initiative to lead the international
collaborative researches (Fig. 2). For instance, as the Science Coordinator, Mary Voytek (former
Executive Director of ELSI and headquarters of NASA), with abundant knowledge of astrobiology,
strong connections with astrobiology space missions, and know-how to promote interdisciplinary
researches, will play a central role of Science Coordinator, especially focusing to connect ELSI andtop-level astrobiology and space mission teams in both USA and Europe.
The Director and Science Coordinator will promote the international circulation of world’s best
brains in three ways. First, ELSI will promote mid-term (~two years) exchanges of early-career
scientists (researchers and Ph.D graduate students of ELSI course (see Section 5 below)) with key
research partners in USA and Europe. Second, ELSI will promote to hire promising, mid-to-early
career researchers as fixed-term A-PIs or researchers in ELSI. As the host institute, ELSI has
provided world-class facilities and equipment as well as living support to foreign researchers,
including their families. Through these two, ELSI can continue to be “Agora (gathering place)” forambitious interdisciplinary scientists, connecting space, Earth, and life sciences, and to create real
new fields of science, such as astrobiology and universal biology.
In addition to these two, we will hold international symposia and conferences in order for ELSI tokeep as one of the top leading institutes of astrobiology and the origin of life science. ELSI has
worked hard to be a globally accessible and appealing center for research that serves as a hub foroutstanding science. ELSI will keep being a leader for the global origins community by holding
international symposia and conferences.
Concrete plan: In the next decade, ELSI will set the following research themes (see Section 2Tokyo Institute of Technology - 3
Earth-Life Science Instituteabove): 1. Organic and geochemical networks on planets and 2. Synthetic and theoreticalbiology in space. As for theme 1, ELSI will strengthen connections with space mission teams(space-planetary partners; Fig. 2), with aims to predict and interpret the observational data oforganic matter and geochemical materials on planetary environments, Mars, icy ocean worlds, andexoplanets, by using the models constructed by in-house/interinstitutional collaborations. Thecounterpart research teams of theme 1 include NASA JPL & GSFC, ESA, Colombia Univ., Georgia Inst.
of Tech, Penn State Univ., and Univ Colorado, Boulder, with all which ELSI has been conducting
collaborative researches. Collaborative research topics include reconstruction of aqueous
environments and geochemical cycles on early Mars, habitability and life detection in icy oceanworlds, and possible discovery of atmospheric biosignatures on exoplanets.
Concerning theme 2, ELSI will make collaborative researches through exchanging researcherswith major centrals in synthetic biology (biology-chemistry partners; Fig. 2), with aims to understandselectivity and evolution of molecular systems with functions in changing environments (e.g., pH,redox, temperature, pressure, etc.). The counterpart research teams of theme 2 include Harvard
Univ., Cambridge Univ., and LMU Munich. Collaborative research topics include formation of proto-cellwith materials different from those used by the modern life, artificial evolution of biomolecularsystems in planetary environments, and RNA synthesis in geochemical cycles.

Fig. 2. Concepts and plans of the international circulation of world’s best brains led by ELSI.

5. Plan for Disseminating the WPI Program Achievements* Describe your policy and concrete plan for disseminating WPI center achievements both within the host institution and to otheruniversities, especially their experience and know-how accumulated on establishing top world research institutes and advancing system
reforms.

In the next decade, ELSI will return acquired knowledge and developed systems to Tokyo Techand public. These returns include education, public outreach, and collaborations with industries.
Return to education by ELSI will be a reform of the existing education system. In Japanese
education system, academic subdivisions occur as the grade progresses. However, many
fundamental issues in science, industries, and society are more complex and cannot be solved by asingle subdivided discipline, calling for integration of academics. ELSI will provide an integrated
education course of Earth-Life sciences. This will be a benchmark for establishment of otherintegrated education programs in Japan. Through return to public and industries, ELSI will seek newTokyo Institute of Technology - 4Earth-Life Science Instituteways to acquire fund from society to be a self-propelled, pure-science institute. This would be areform of way of being a national pure-science institute in Japan.
Given the unique international and interdisciplinary expertise, ELSI will be able to be a premier
research and education institution on campus of Tokyo Tech. From 2022, ELSI faculty will have amajor role in training the next generation of researchers and engineers in interdisciplinary researchby teaching graduate course and supervising students. ELSI will start new integrated graduate
course, called the ELSI course, in Tokyo Tech. In the ELSI course, we will provide systematic lecture
series of astrobiology, lab/industry/overseas internships, and practical project exercises incollaboration with industries. This course is a 5-year (Master-PhD) program and will financially
support students. This is a unique education program in universities of Japan.
6. Plan for Sustaining the WPI Brand* Describe your plan for sustaining and enhancing the WPI brand.

ELSI will continue its annual ELSI International Symposium, which had been very effective inincreasing the visibility of ELSI worldwide. For scientific outreach activities, ELSI PR office has beenorganizing a public lecture series and joint Kavli-IPMU/ELSI/IRCN lecture series “Quest for Origins”.
The science theme of ELSI or astrobiology – How did life emerge? Is there life beyond Earth inspace? – is fundamental and universal to people all over the world. We will make an appeal topublic through sharing science achievements and will acquire ELSI funs to financially support ELSI’s
science activities. ELSI’s PR Office is already working along with Tokyo Tech PR in English-language
based science outreach and communication. We have hosted the Japan Science Communication
Forum twice (2018, 2019), attended by PR and outreach staff from universities and institutions fromall over Japan. ELSI will continue hosting this event and providing regular science communication
trainings.
7. Support by Host institution* Describe measures that the host institution will take to support and sustain your Center.

To maintain ELSI’s position as one of the world’s leading research centers after the completion ofthe WPI program, Tokyo Tech has guaranteed that it will provide 10 full-time PIs and supporting
staff necessary for the operation of the institute. In addition, Tokyo Tech will continue to support
ELSI with the presidential discretionary budget and provide space for laboratories, meeting rooms,and offices. ELSI has already been assigned eight tenure positions for full-time PIs. These are theresults of Tokyo Tech positioning ELSI as a key institute in its mid- and long-term strategic plans forstrengthening education and research. In the newly-established ELSI course, Tokyo Tech has
already prepared a scheme to financially support the graduate students enrolled in this course.
8. Resource Allocation Plan

* Describe your plans over a 5-year period for allocating resources acquired from both the host institution (e.g., financial resources andpositions) and from external research funding to execute the Center’s functions and activities described above.
* In Appendix 4, enter concrete numbers in the Resource Allocation Plan.

In addition to the financial support offered from Tokyo Tech, ELSI is trying to obtain large grants.
Also ELSI will make collaborations to promote research projects with industries. For instance, ELSI’sscience, such as cycles of nutrients on planets, is applicable to space agricultures on the Moon andMars. Many of ELSI’s researches can be applicable to space development and business. Since anartificial cell is a compact and functional system, social implementation of synthetic biology isanother potential to collaborate with industries. Under leaderships of the Director and Science
Coordinators, ELSI will organize collaborative development projects as a project exercise of the ELSIcourse. This would provide an opportunity of recurrent education for young company employees.

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Earth-Life Science InstituteAppendix 1

Appendix 1 List of Principal Investigators (Application for Academy Center Certification)* If the number of principal investigators exceeds 10, add rows as appropriate.
* Give age as of 1 April 2022
* For investigators who cannot participate in the center project from FY 2022, indicate the time that their participation will start in the “Notes” column.
* Enter the host institution name and the center name in the footer.

Name1 Yasuhito SEKINE

Current affiliation

Age43(position title, organization, department)

Director,
Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life Science InstituteAcademic degree and current specialties
Ph.D.,
Planetary Science, Astrobioloby, Evolution ofEarth and planets

Professor, The University of Tokyo, Department of Earth andPh.D., High-pressure Geoscience
Planetary Science
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life Science
Institute
Ph.D.,
63
3 Mary VOYTEKProfessor, Columbia University
Biology and Ocean Sciences, Astrobiology
Senior Scientist, NASA
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life Science Ph.D.,
61
4 Shigeru IDA
InstitutePlanetary Sciences, Planetary Physics
Ph.D.,
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life Science
Geophysical Modeling, Fluid and Solid49
5 John HERNLUND
InstituteDynamics
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life ScienceInstitutePh.D., High-energy/particle Physics
56
6 Eric SMITH
External Professor, Santa Fe InstituteSenior Research Scientist, Georgia Institute of Technology
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Department ofPh.D.,
47
7 Yuichiro UENO
Earth and Planetary Sciences
Geochemistry
Associate Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, EarthPh.D.,
38
8 Shawn McGLYNN
Life Science Institute
Evolutionary Biology, Microbial Biochemistry
45
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life Science Ph.D., Electrochemistry
9 Ryuhei NAKAMURA
Associate Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth47
Ph.D., Planet Formation
10 Hidenori GENDA
Life Science Institute50
Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth-Life Science Ph.D., Biotechnology
11 Tomoaki Matsuura
Associate Professor, Tokyo Institute of Technology, Earth39
Ph.D., Astrobiology
12 Kosuke Fujishima
Life Science Institute*Percentage of time that the principal investigator devotes to working for the center vis-à-vis his/her total working hours.

2 Kei HIROSE

54

Tokyo Institute of Technology -1

Effort(%)*

Notes(Enter “new” or “ongoing”)

80

ongoing30

ongoing25

ongoing80

ongoing80

ongoing80

ongoing30

ongoing80

ongoing80

ongoing80

ongoing80

ongoing80

ongoing

Earth-Life Science InstituteAppendix 2World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
Number of Center Personnel
FY2022
Number of persons

Researchers％

28

Overseas researchers

1554

Female researchers

829

Principal investigators (PIs)

12

Overseas PIs

433

Female PIs

18

Other researchers

7Overseas researchers

571

Female researchers

343

Postdocs

9Overseas Postdocs

667

Female Postdocs

444

Research support staffs

35

Administrative staffs

15TOTAL

78
Tokyo Institute of Technology

Earth-Life Science InstituteAppendix 3

World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI)
Diagram of Organizational Management System- Diagram the Center’s organizational management system and its position within the host institution in an easily understood manner.

Tokyo Institute of Technology -1Earth-Life Science Institute