Yusuke TOYAMA, Ph.D, Principal Investigator

Yusuke Toyama had a formal training in physics and engineering during graduate (Osaka University) and undergraduate (Hokkaido University) school in Japan. In 2003, he earned a Ph.D. in Engineering where his doctoral work was focus on Laser Driven Inertial Confinement Fusion. He then embraced biological physics at Duke University, USA. As part of his work with Prof. Glenn Edwards (Physics department) and Prof. Dan Kiehart (Biology department), he recognized the power of multidisciplinary approaches to solve biological problems. In May 2010, He joined Department of Biological Sciences (DBS) at National University of Singapore as an assistant professor and Mechanobiology Institute, Singapore (MBI) as a principal investigator. In July 2010, He joined TLL as a principal investigator.

You may wish to contact Dr Yusuke TOYAMA at:

Tel:  (65) 6872 7000  ,   6872 7454  (DID) Email: yusuke@tll.org.sg

For information on PhD studies at TLL, click HERE

Research Interests

Developmental biology Mechanobiology Biophysics Bioimaging

Research Projects

In embryonic development, mechanical forces exerted by cells and tissues play a predominant role. Cells can actively produce forces and can provide a passive response, making the process of morphogenesis larger than the sum of individual cells. The extraction of mechanical signature from cell / tissue dynamics using a multidisciplinary approach, including imaging, image analysis, gene manipulation, biophysical instruments, and modeling is fundamental to our research. An interdisciplinary atmosphere in our lab is also apparent from our lab members: they are from different institutes (DBS, MBI, and TLL) and have different backgrounds (e.g., biology, engineering, physics, image analysis).

We use Drosophila as a model systems to uncover: - Spatially coordinated and temporally synchronized collective cell behaviors underlying tissue morphogenesis; - Effects of spatial and geometric constraints of microenvironment on cell and tissue dynamics; - Role of apoptotic process and cell proliferation on tissue dynamics. We plan to apply our approaches to other model systems like Zebrafish in the future.