On Nov. 25th, 2014, Invited by Prof. Yang, Prof. Osada Yoshihito visited the College of Life Science and Technology of HUST, and presented an excellent speech entitled “Intelligent Gels-An Approach to Artificial Muscles”.

      They developed a novel method to synthesize hydrogels with excellent mechanical performances by introducing a double-network (DN) structure composed of various combinations of hydrophilic polymers. The DN hydrogel exhibited fracture strengths as high as several tens of megapascals, i.e., up to ~100 kgf cm-2  which is almost equivalent to that of tendon. They also reported new-type of bio-machine reconstructed from the chemically cross-linked muscle protein: actin–myosin and microtubule-kinesin gels (Nanobiomachine) both fueled by an adenosine triphosphate(ATP). This might be the first man-made biomachine gels fueled by ATP, central interests of  life science now-a-days.