The activities of KASC from 2020
Over the last 20 years, we have constantly been engaged in a number of activities for creating a basis for new developments in science and culture by activating mutual communications between the scientific/technological specialists and the general public including both adults and children centering in the Kansai area, besides our own research activities in the scientific laboratory. These activities include (1) organizing a variety of science camps for children and (2) holding “Keihanna Science Cafe” for the public and specialists (more than 200 times on different topics), (3) carrying out a research project on Policy Recommendation on Science Mediator and (4) carrying out the high-originality research and technology developments in bioscience and technology.
we are remodeling our activities into the following three major categories.
A. Scientific Research Activities
A-1. Division of Future Perspectives and Insights of Microbiology Study
(headed by Dr. Katsutada TAKAHASHI)
Research activity on microbiology study started when the academy was founded. The starting point was to analyze the thermal stability of various proteins and their specific reactions, especially the ligand bindings, from the viewpoint of experimental thermodynamics. Eventually, we realized that it was important to extend the technology to the cellular level, and developed a technique to detect the signal associated with microbial growth nondestructively and developed mathematical methods to analyze observed data to obtain quantitatively the microbial growth activity.
In 2003 we were invited to give a lecture on the developed method at the JETRO-sponsored technical seminar arranged for US Midwest Biomission inspection team held at Kyoto Research Park. Also, in February 2006, we were awarded the "Excellent Technology Award (Kyoto Sangyo 21 Director's Award)" by Kyoto Prefecture.
Furthermore, in 2008-2010 Japan Science and Technology Agency further selected this analytical method as one of advanced technique and continue the research to develop it in the food field under the name “Food Hygiene Inspection System: Non-destructive microbial activity measurement technology”. Now we have three models of Antares type, Leonis type, and Spica type, and they are widely employed in research institutes of various universities, public research institutions and private companies.
We have compiled a list of such documents, including books and explanations for general conveniences and please refer to the followings:
For inquiries about the microbial activity measurement system described on this website, please contact below.
Address : Keihanna Academy of Science and Culture, Keihanna Plaza Laboratory Wing 3 F, Seika, Kyoto 619-0237, Japan
TEL ： +81-774-95-5110
FAX ： 81-50-3156-1616
E-mail ： antares@kvc.keihanna.ne.jp / bpctakahas@gmail.com
URL ： http://www3.kcn.ne.jp/~kvc
A-2. Division of Pressure Biotechnology and Biomedicine
(Headed by Dr. Kazuyuki AKASAKA)
This research will be carried out in collaboration with distinguished scientists in Japan, Germany, USA, China and others.
Outline: In1996, right after the Kobe earthquake, Akasaka and his colleague Yamada invented the technology of high pressure NMR spectroscopy of proteins at high resolution and applied it to find structures of proteins under pressure of 1~4000 bar (cf. Akasaka & Yamada, Methods in Enzymology 338: 134-146, 2001) (Figure 1).
Figure 1
The dynamic reality of proteins, as generally depicted above, gives the basis not only for protein folding phenomena, but more importantly the basis for protein function, and further for evolution, adaptation and disease (See Akasaka, Experimental Approaches of NMR Spectroscopy, Springer, 2018, pp 3-36; Akasaka & Matsuki, eds., High Pressure Bioscience-Basic Concepts, Applications and Frontiers, Springer, 2015) (https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789401799171).
Awards:
Akasaka has received awards for his scientific accomplishments:
Humboldt Research Award (Humboldt-Forschungspreis) (1998; from the Alexander-von-Humboldt Society, Germany) ,
Commendation for Science and Technology (2009; from the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology of Japan),
The Society Award (2014; from The Japan Society of High Pressure Science and Technology)
* Akasaka CV SEP2020
* Publication list of K. Akasaka
A-3. Organizing Conference in Life Science and Related Fields
A-3-1. “Keihanna International Conference on Molecular Biophysics”
Up to 2005, we held international conference every year for 10 years long. The main theme is biophysics and the conference was called “Keihanna International Conference on Molecular Biophysics”. The First one was held in 1996 under the subtitle “Energetic Basis of Structural Biology; Molecular Insight from Thermodynamics Applied to Macromolecules in Water” where the organizers were Profs. Hans Hinz, Shun-ichi Kidokoro, Katsutada Takahashi, and Peter Privalov
A-3-2. “International Meeting on Biomolecules under Pressure” (IMBP)
Past IMBP: 1st-10th, 2006-2019.
In 2005, Akasaka (Core Institution in Japan (Co-Chair) Kinki Universit) and international collaborators in core institutions in Germany, USA and France started the JSPS Core-to-Core Program ‒Integrated Action Initiative-FY2005 Implementation Plan (Project No. :17009) with research theme “New Approach to Protein Structure and Dynamics from Pressure-Axis Experiments”:Duration of Project 2005 / 4 / 1 - 2007 / 3 / 31 (24 months).
The project initiated first International Meeting on Biomolecules under Pressure (IMBP) with the title “Pressure, Hydration and Dynamics-toward a new dynamic view of proteins” in Okinawa in 2006. Then a series of IMBP meetings were held every or every other year, either in Europe, USA or Japan up to the 10th and will be continued as shown below:
Past meetings:
January 2006 Okinawa , JAPAN, Chair: Kazuyuki Akasaka “Pressure, Hydration and Dynamics-toward a new dynamic view of proteins” (JSPS Core-to-Core Program; Akasaka, Royer, Kalbitzer, Frauenfelder)
2007 Montpelier, FRANCE, Chair: Cathy Royer
January, 2008 Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA, Chair: Angel Garcia “Proteins under Pressure”
December 2008, Synchrotron Soleil, Saint Aubin, FRANCE , Chair: Roger Fourme “High Pressure Molecular Biophysics”
August 2009 Regensburg, GERMANY, Chair: H.-R. Kalbitzer “International Meeting on Biomolecules under Pressure” (IMBP)
March 2011, Otsu, JAPAN, Chair: H. Tachibana “Pressure as a basic tool in Bioscience”
2014 Montpelier, Chair: Christian Roumestand
February 2016 Dortmund, GERMANY, Chair: Roland Winter “Towards New Horizons in High Pressure Molecular Biosciences”
August 2017 Kyoto, JAPAN, Chair : Kazuyuki Akasaka “Pressure applications in physiology and medicine”
September-October 2019 Dortmund, GERMANY, Chair: Roland Winter
in USA
in Japan
B. Scientific and Cultural Activities for the General Public
B-1. Keihanna Salon Forum: “Science Café” open for the General Public (1993-)
In 1993, we established the <Keihanna Salon Forum> as the first “Science Cafe” in the world to exchange information between science/technology experts and the citizens, as soon as "Keihanna Interaction Plaza", the facility in the core part of the Kansai Science City was opened. The salon is a predecessor of the 1999’s Budapest Declaration with the slogan of "The 21st Century is The Age of Trans-science, i.e., says Science in Society, Science for Society". <Keihanna Salon Forum> has been held for more than 20 years, as a representative project of the Kansai Science City, providing unique opportunities for ordinary citizens to make direct contact with frontier scientists and discuss scientific and social issues of concern.
<Keihanna Salon Forum> reached a total of 231 meetings in December 2019: As the first speaker we invited Prof. Fumio Osawa, the founder of Japan Biophysical Society, and as the second Dr. Yukinori Kuwano, who was a pioneering researcher of solar power generation system and its practical application. He was later appointed president of Sanyo Electric Co. Ltd. In this way, we invite each time an expert in a specific field as a topic provider. For example, Dr. Kazuhiro Tsuga, the developer of Blue-ray, is currently the president of Panasonic Corporation. Ltd., and Prof. Hiroshi Matsumoto of Kyoto University, who spoke about space solar power generation and its microwave transmission to the ground. A few years later he became the President of Kyoto University and later the director of RIKEN, Institute of Physical and Chemical Research.
<Keihanna Salon Forum> may set up a special forum in series for a certain period of time, specializing in a specific public issue for discussion.
For example, in 2018, we had a series of discussion for four consecutive months on “How to dispose of plastic to solve environmental pollution" and, in 2019, we had discussions on the theme of "Food loss", which have been summarized as research papers in Kyoto University's annual report, “Journal of Education and Research for Regional Alliances, Vol 5”.
Now after 25 years have passed, the human activities in basic science and technology have enormously advanced, particularly in such fields as life science and space science, while the human activities in related culture seem to remain relatively the same world-wide, particularly in such fields as philosophy and religion. A series of lectures and discussions on selective topics will be planned to cope with the situation and the knowledge and discussions are to be shared among the scientists and the public as widely as possible.
B-2. Research project: Policy Recommendation on Science Mediator (2002-2005)
Under the commission by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), the research program "Promotion of the Science Mediator System" for the purpose of promoting science and technology policy was started in 2002 under the budget for promoting science and technology and the final report and the policy recommendations were submitted in March 2005. The participating organizations at that time were Public Foundation of Kansai Research Institute as the core institution, Japan Atomic Energy Research Institute (now Japan Atomic Energy Agency), Advanced Telecommunication Research Institute International, Nara Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Osaka University Free Electron Laser Research Institute, and the Keihanna Academy of Science and Culture.
Addendum: Report on the 228th~231th Keihanna Salon Forum
Title of the forum："Provision of information on the food loss problems to citizens and dialogue with them:
Efforts to bridge the gap between professionals and ordinary citizens"
In 2015, the United Nations established 17 important items and adopted a resolution to achieve them as “Sustainable Development Goals” or simply as “SDGs” by 2030. Since then efforts are being made to realize it in each country. The "food hunger” is the second of these 17 items and this is, of course, due to global climate change resulting in reduction of food production in agriculture.
However, in Japan, the situation is different and the problem of "food loss" rather than “starvation” is serious. For example, it has been shown that the annual food loss of business groups and households in Japan is more than 6 million tons. Although the grounds for estimation vary slightly from country to country, the amount of food waste per capita in Japan exceeds 130 kg per year, which is the sixth largest statistics after the Netherlands, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Germany. For this reason, in Keihanna Salon Forum we discussed what problems are there, how we can improve this and what kind of ways would be effective in improving this situation ?.
Purpose of this forum is to provide information about food loss from experts to citizens in order to find out what measures should be taken to reduce it. At the same time, we investigated the attitudes of citizens to analyze the gap of consciousness between experts and non-experts. In the study four discussion forums were held by focusing on the following 4 themes; i.e. "the current situation", "how to determine the expiration date", "the international norm HACCP", and "think the solution together with citizens and experts". Each venue was not a one-way exchange of information by common experts, but rather a form in which participants interacted and discussed their ideas based on the theme introduced.
As a result, the following situation became clear: (1) Japan has a high level of science and technology. At the same time, on average citizens receive a higher education than in other countries. (2) However, education strongly focuses on increasing the amount of knowledge only. (3) Therefore, the 2000 OECD's Worldwide Recommendation on Education is not reflected on school education. (4) The above three points create the gap in the consciousness between food safety professionals and citizens and it leads to delays in reducing food loss.
From the above analysis, it was concluded that people should still more well understand the philosophy of education that the OECD showed to the world in 2000, and should apply it to the school education so that the citizens act on scientific thinking habits in Japan in order to attain the reduction of food loss in Japan.
C. Educational and Social Activities for Younger Generation
C-1. International Children's Camp
The program started in 2001 to establish a global standard camp in Japan. We hold a four-night and five–day resident type camp every summer twice a year and invite elementary school boys and girls, being 4th to 6th grade children with ages of 8 to 11 years old. The camp is held at the facility located in the foot of Mt. Ikoma, Nara Prefecture. As of August 2019, we have reached the 34th camp. Each time we accept a total of 28 children, while there are three times or more of applications each time.
The camp counselors who directly care children are mainly foreign graduate students (*) who are enrolled and studying at Kyoto University, Doshisha University and some other universities. All of them had experiences working as the camp counselors in their home countries, before they came to Japan and were enrolled in Japanese graduate schools. The number of countries from where the camp counselors came amounts to more than 70 countries up to now. English is a common language used in the camp.
All of the campers will receive the certificate of achievement at the closing ceremony. We provide, at the same time, a certificate of social contribution in Cooperate Social Responsibility, CSR, to those who worked with us as camp counselors.
* In the United States, Canada and in Europe most of the camp counselors are selected from high school students or freshmen or sophomore of college students. However, in this camp most camp counselors will be selected from the graduate students who are studying in graduate schools of Japanese universities.
C-2. Children's science camp
For elementary school children with ages of 8 to 11 years old, the science camp is held at "Keihanna Interaction Plaza" for 3 days each during summer, winter and spring vacations. Each time we accept 28 boys and girls and they enjoy a total of 13 scientific experiments. The themes are such as pH measurement of foodstuffs, determination of sugar and salt contents, extraction and isolation of chlorophyll from plant leaves and a measurement of its spectroscopic spectrum, freezing point depression, microscopic observation of biological and microbiological cells and of chemical crystals, temperature dependence of electrical resistance, etc. The 6 frames in the latter half of the camp are of “the round-robin laboratory practices” where the experimental practices are conducted in small groups of 3-5 children. All of the practices are managed by camp counselors who were selected from foreign students enrolled in graduate schools of different universities.
All of the campers and staff members including the camp counselors will stay in the neighboring hotel “Keihanna Plaza Hotel”. During the camp, the campers will enjoy not only the scientific programs but also the counselor’s presentations about their home countries. These additional programs are highly appreciated by parents as an opportunity to broaden their horizons. As of December 2019, we have reached the 30th time in total.
C-3. Global Camp for Junior High School Students
In response to a strong request from parents camp programs arranged for junior high school students started in 2012. It will be held twice a year, in summer and in spring for a period of 2 nights and 3 days at Keihanna Interaction Plaza. The program is so designed that the campers will have an opportunity to learn more about the countries of the world, to think about the world challenges we face. We reached the 16th in August 2019. Usually we accept 30 boys and girls. In addition to the 4 staff members, 5 to 6 international students and ALTs (assistant language teachers) are always helping us as camp counselors. Each time we will decide on a specific theme, listen to the lecture about it, think about the problem raised, discuss it, and on the last day the campers will summarize the discussed points. The presentation can be either in English or in Japanese. The themes we have covered in the past include, for example, climate change issues, energy and food crisis, and artificial intelligence. During the breaks, the counselors will also talk about their home countries, i.e., geographical condition, history, culture and food and customs etc.
The characteristics of this global camp is that some of the campers go to foreign school under an exchange study system or as a part of homestay programs and come back to the camp next year as a senior camper so that they talk about their experiences they had during their foreign countries.
C-4. Sunday Science Program
On the 3rd Sunday of every month, the <Keihanna Plaza Children's Science Laboratory> is held for kindergarten seniors to third grade elementary school children, ages of 4 to 8 years old. Basically, parents are required to accompany them and enjoy the scientific experiment together for 2 to 3 hours.
Please notice that the program is not designed to increase the amount of knowledge, but just to develop their scientific thinking habits.
The purpose of accompanying parents is to enable them to have conversations at home even when they return home. In the program we use the genuine scientific experiment equipment such as the spectrophotometer, microscope, multifunction voltmeter, Geiger-Mueller counter, clean bench, incubator, etc.
The themes we have picked up so far are many, including the science of baking, the observation of microscopes, the science of flying objects, and the science of chocolate. We believe that these programs are in line with the OECD recommendations for education reform in each country in 2000.
C-5. Sunday English Experience Program
In accordance with the revolution changes in school curriculum in 2020 in Japan, the English experience program for the third grade school children with ages of 7 to 8, has started. Since this change in curriculum is the first time for elementary school children to position English as a subject in their lower grades in Japan, many parents are confused and worried about the situation of their children.
This program is opened for children of kindergarten seniors to third grade elementary school children. However, the aim of this program is designed not to teach English conversation, but to put the child in an English-speaking environment, and that experience will help them to learn English in the future. As a general rule, parents are required to accompany them, and parents will also enjoy the atmosphere together. At the same time as the foreign graduate students will cooperate with the Japanese staff and help us as foreign staff members.
The name of the program is English experience, but this is for the time being and we plan to spread it to other languages such as French, German, Italian, Russian and Arabic.
C-6. JAXA Cosmic College
In addition to the educational programs we have been working on, we are giving children scientific information about the universe: Our academy, in association with the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (abbreviated as JAXA), informs children about progress in science and technology related to space and aviation, introduction of the unknown world.
Currently, there are five JAXA accredited space education leaders in this academy and we hold the cosmic college for younger generation with the support and sponsorship of the educational committees of JAXA irregularly several time a year and each time, local governments, boards of education, etc. sponsor this project.
