Prof. Kusumi to Serve on ASCB Council

August 26, 2010

The American Society for Cell Biology (ASCB) announced in its July ASCB Newsletter that Kyoto University's Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences (iCeMS) Prof. Akihiro Kusumi has been elected to serve as one of the Society's 12 council members. He and the other three newly elected members, Drs. David Botstein, James Sabry, and Yixian Zheng, will each serve three-year terms beginning January 1, 2011.

Based in Bethesda, MD, U.S.A., the ASCB was founded in 1960 to promote and develop the field of cell biology. Among the approximately 10,000 members are many renowned scientists such as Prof. Carol W. Greider (2009 Nobel Laureate in Physiology or Medicine) and Martin Chalfie (2008 Nobel Laureate in Chemistry). About 25% of ASCB members are from outside the United States, coming from more than 65 countries around the world.

Prof. Kusumi has developed ultra high-speed single-molecule observation and manipulation nano-methodologies applicable to the studies of living cells. These methods are employed to reveal the structures, dynamics, and functions of mesoscale domains in the plasma membrane, which are investigated in the context of cellular signal transduction and neuronal network remodeling.

When, for the first time in the world, Prof. Kusumi succeeded in filming the movement of single membrane molecules within the plasma membrane of living mammalian cells at resolutions of microseconds and nanometers, Nature magazine devoted three pages of its February 17, 2005 issue to feature this ground-breaking research (Nature vol. 433 no. 7027 pp. 680-682). He and his team, currently working on the development of new meso-bio single-molecule imaging techniques, aim to elucidate the mechanisms of the formation and function of meso-scale membrane domains and lay the groundwork for future nano-meso tissue engineering.

Prof. Kusumi, who also serves as director of the iCeMS' Center for Meso-Bio Single-Molecule Imaging (CeMI), welcomes his new assignment:

"From the time of its establishment, the ASCB has emphasized its role of becoming a platform for cross-disciplinary research by scientists from different backgrounds, such as physics, chemistry, and biology, for understanding the mechanisms of cell functions, and this is why the ASCB is one of my favorite scientific societies. It is my great pleasure to contribute to the further development of this organization. In addition, I also wish to serve as a liaison between the ASCB's international members and the Council, as I have heard that, in spite of the relatively large percentage of non-American scientists, their voices at times have difficulty reaching the management of the society."