Shogo Taguchi
Assistant Professor | Ph.D. in Engineering
Applied Chemistry Course
Field of Applied Chemistry
In his teaching, Assistant Professor Shogo Taguchi is primarily responsible for laboratory exercises and practical training, helping science and engineering students acquire the skills they need. His research focuses on oil dispersed in water, a class of materials known as soft matter; applying soft matter engineering grounded in physical chemistry and chemical engineering, he investigates the properties of oil and works toward the design and development of membrane materials.
Development of Functional Membrane Materials through Self-Assembly and Morphology Control of Amphiphilic Molecules
What students can learn
Through soft matter engineering grounded in physical chemistry and chemical engineering, students can develop skills in handling the aggregate structures—dispersion and assembly—of molecular assemblies such as liposomes and lipid nanoparticles, together with techniques for imparting functionality. These skills are expected to be valuable in environmental and biomedical engineering fields.
Many of the functional materials found in everyday life draw inspiration from biological systems. A common feature of these materials is that their functions emerge through the assembly of molecules. This research develops functional materials by controlling the aggregate structures that molecular assemblies form in aqueous solution. In particular, it employs bicelles—inherently unstable molecular assemblies—to create novel functional materials and to streamline their fabrication processes. Building on the dispersion and aggregation properties of bicelles, the research also pursues continuous fabrication of functional membrane materials using bicelles as precursors, extending toward materials suitable for drug delivery carriers and biosensing applications.
