MANA International Symposium 2012 successfully finished

March 5, 2012

The MANA International Symposium 2012 was held jointly with the International Center for Young Scientists (ICYS) at the Epochal Tsukuba International Congress Center from February 29 to March 2, 2012. The symposium is held once a year to present research results of MANA to the inside and outside of Japan.

The symposium started with an opening address by Dr. Sukekatsu Ushioda, NIMS President. Subsequent greetings were delivered by Dr. Koki Uchimaru, Director of Basic Research Promotion Division, MEXT, Prof. Toshio Kuroki, Director of WPI Program and Prof. Gunzi Saito, WPI Program Officer of MANA. The symposium continued with a briefing of MANA by Dr. Masakazu Aono, MANA Director-General.

Sukekatsu Ushioda

Opening of the symposimum was addressed by Dr. Sukekatsu Ushioda, NIMS President.

Toshio Kuroki

Dr. Koki Uchimaru, Director of Basic Research Promotion Division, MEXT.

Gunji Saito

Prof. Toshio Kuroki, Director of WPI Program.

Masakazu Aono

Prof. Gunzi Saito, WPI Program Officer of MANA.


Then a Special Lecture entitled "Magical Power of d-Block Transition Metals - Past, Present, and Future" by Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi (Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2010, Purdue University) was delivered. The venue was filled to capacity with the standing audience and Prof. Negishi talked to them about the magical power of palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reaction.

Afterward, a Special Session entitled "Celebration of the 30th anniversary of the first paper about the scanning tunneling microscope (STM)" was held. Three researchers including Dr. Heinich Rohrer, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1986 and the one of the inventors of STM, Prof. James K. Gimzewski, MANA Satellite PI, UCLA and Dr. Masakazu Aono, MANA Director-General, talked about the time of the development of STM, the history of its progress in the performance and applied research results of STM.

Prof. Eiichi Negishi

Prof. Ei-ichi Negishi, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry 2010, gives a Special Lecture.

Dr. Heinich Rohrer

Dr. Heinich Rohrer, Nobel Laureate in Physics 1986, talks at the Special Session.

Prof. James Gimzewski

Prof. James K. Gimzewski, MANA Satellite PI, UCLA

Dr. Masakazu Aono

Dr. Masakazu Aono, MANA Director-General.


In sessions over three days, presentations of research results from the four MANA research fields Nano-Materials, Nano-System, Nano-Green and Nano-Bio and from the ICYS by researchers from MANA and ICYS were conducted. The sessions also included 10 invited presentations by distinguished scientists from the world as shown below.

389 participants from 35 countries in total made active discussions and the symposium finished successfully.

Dr. Naoki Yokoyama

Dr. Naoki Yokoyama, Leader, Collaborative Research Team, AIST.

Prof. Motoko Kotani

Prof. Motoko Kotani, WPI-AIMR, Tohoku Univ.

Prof. Adrian Bachtold

Prof. Adrian Bachtold, Catalan Institute of Nanotechnology, ICN.

Prof. Nenad M. Markovic

Prof. Nenad M. Markovic, Group Leader, MSD, Argonne National Laboratory.

Prof. Hiroyuki Nishide

Prof. Hiroyuki Nishide, Waseda University.

Prof. Tsutomu Katsuki

Prof. Tsutomu Katsuki, WPI-I2CNER, Kyushu University

Prof. Hiroshi Kitagawa

Prof. Hiroshi Kitagawa, WPI-iCeMS, Kyoto University.

Prof. Mikael Kall

Prof. Mikael Käll, Chalmers Univ. of Tech.

Prof. David F. Williams

Prof. David F. Williams, Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine.

Dr. Yoshihiro Ito

Dr. Yoshihiro Ito, Chief Scientist, RIKEN.

group photo of the participants at the symposium

The participants at the entrance of Eochal Tsukuba on February 29, 2012.