About the Kinoshita Laboratory
At the Kinoshita Laboratory, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Soka University, we advance research that integrates the life sciences and information sciences. With a particular focus on glycans (carbohydrate chains), we work on analyzing biological information, building databases, and applying AI-driven analytics, aiming to deepen the understanding of biological phenomena and their application to disease research.
Through research activities, our students acquire practical skills in programming, data analysis, and web system development. By participating in collaborative research with domestic and international institutions and presenting at academic conferences, they develop the proactive problem-solving ability and research competence essential to becoming independent researchers.
What are Glycans?
Glycans are biological molecules formed by multiple sugars linked in a chain. They are attached to the cell surface, proteins, and lipids, and play essential roles in many biological processes — including cell-to-cell recognition, immune system regulation, viral and bacterial infection, and connections to cancer and various diseases.
Glycans are often called the "third chain of life," alongside DNA and proteins. While DNA and proteins are typically described as linear sequences of information, glycans form branched, three-dimensional structures, making them notoriously difficult to analyze and represent as data. Furthermore, because glycans are synthesized and modified step-by-step by multiple enzymes such as glycosyltransferases and glycosidases, their biosynthesis is highly complex.
Understanding the structural diversity and biosynthetic pathways of glycans therefore requires the integrated analysis of large volumes of experimental data. In recent years, informatics-driven approaches — leveraging database technology, bioinformatics, AI, and machine learning — have become increasingly important.
Our Expertise
Glycan Databases
Curation, integration, and international standardization of structure and function data.
Bioinformatics
Development of computational methods to analyze biological information.
AI & Machine Learning
Applying AI to glycan data to uncover new biological insights.
Data Mining
Extracting patterns and knowledge from large-scale biological data.
International Collaboration
Advancing glycoscience together with research institutions worldwide.
Development Projects
We develop platforms that exhaustively analyze the entire set of glycans (the glycome) in living organisms and provide these resources to researchers worldwide.
GlyCosmos
An integrated portal for glycoscience and life science, unifying data on genes, proteins, diseases, and more.
Visit GlyCosmos
GlyTouCan
The international glycan structure repository. A registry that assigns unique accession numbers to every glycan structure.
Visit GlyTouCan