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KAGAWA UNIVERSITY
RARE SUGAR
RESEARCH CENTER
MIKI-CHO, JAPAN 7610795 |
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It is accumulated as a living material called "sugar" by a plant,
and most organisms including us use a sunbeam pouring on the earth as an
energy source of the livings. It is thought that the human performed the
industrial use of the sugar for a long time. For example, the alcohol fermentation
uses sugar as raw materials from the history on record past. In addition,
a study about the sugar was pushed forward in the study of the biotechnology
first.
The study about the sugar had the long history till now in this way, and
it seemed that it was almost finished. It seemed that "monosaccharide"
is a minimum unit of sugar and is a simple structure was already elucidated
exhaustively. Kagawa University Rare Sugar Research Center regards this
"monosaccharide" which has been thought to be it be studied exhaustively
as a study.
The monosaccharide to study in this center is rare sugar. In International Society of Rare Sugar, we defined rare sugar as "monosaccharides in nature with a few amount and their derivatives". The existing monosaccharide is D-glucose abundantly most on the earth. There is a lot of D-galactose, D-mannose and D-ribose in nature, too. On the other hand, L-glucose, L-fructose or D-psicose is rare sugar with a little abundance. The number of rare sugars is around 50 and we narrow down a focus to these rare sugars and push forward a study.
When the existing organic matter thought that it was produced by organisms
on the earth, rare sugar was little quantity produced by the organisms.
It was expected that rare sugar showed physiology activity without the
significance of human being. Rare sugar could be difficult to produce large
amount, and was not a material interested as an object of the studies till
now. However, because it was succeeded that rare sugars could be mass-produced
by using biotechnological method and their properties were elucidated,
it becomes clear to have the new interesting physiology activity. Prospective
results of research are discovered when it leads to the elucidation of
a new life phenomenon.
There is a lot of the research center studying about "protein" and "gene" which are a living material in the world. However, there is not the research center which study about rare sugar all over the world other than "Kagawa University Rare Sugar Research Center". Furthermore, we push forward a study aiming the creation of new glucoside life sciences, cooperate with "Iinternational Society of Rare Sugars" which establish the headquarters in Kagawa University. We expect that this research connects to the welfare/health increase of the human by researching and developing rare sugar as new biomaterial.
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