Film of Work by Profs. Kusumi and Mayor Awarded at S&T Film/Video Festival

April 22, 2011


Prof. Akihiro Kusumi
 

Prof. Satyajit Mayor
 

On April 22 a film describing research co-led by Kyoto University Prof. Akihiro Kusumi was honored with the Best Research and Development Award at the 52nd Science and Technology Film/Video Festival held in Tokyo. The film, "The Restless World of the Plasma Membrane: Clarifying Membrane Mechanisms with Single-Molecule Imaging", was produced by the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and created by NHK Global Media Services.

The research featured in the 30 minute documentary (in Japanese) shines light on the workings of cell membranes, and was coordinated by Prof. Kusumi together with Prof. Satyajit Mayor of India's National Centre for Biological Sciences (NCBS), as part of the JST International Cooperative Research Project (ICORP). By tracking single molecules in plasma membranes, the team was able to explain mechanisms involving proteins and receptors.

Among 67 entries at the festival, 10 were awarded best-in-category prizes, with the top Prime Minister's Award going to "The Kunimasu Is Alive! How We Found this Miraculous Fish" produced by Mainichi Broadcasting System.

DVD Liner Notes

"What the cupids of Raphael's Madonna Sistina (now in Dresden) quizzically regard might be -- how signaling and scaffolding proteins diffuse to arrive at the activated receptors in the plasma membrane, one of the key steps for signal transduction. The plasma membrane is partitioned into small compartments by the actin-based membrane skeleton (which the cupids rest on), and its associated transmembrane proteins. We try to do as these cupids do, observing and manipulating single molecules and molecular interactions.

This video was originally produced for a web-broadcasting program of "Science Channel" run by the JST, which is the same agency that supported our research. Therefore, the presentations are oversimplified and make little references to the contributions by fellow researchers. We hope you like this video in spite of these shortcomings."

Aki Kusumi, Jitu Mayor, and
all the members of the Membrane Mechanisms Project

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