Professor Tomoji Kawai received his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry in 1969, Master of Science in 1971, and Ph.D. in Physical Chemistry in 1974 from the University of Tokyo. He then became a Research Associate at the Institute of Molecular Science.

He joined ISIR, Osaka University as an Associate Professor in 1983. Later, he became Professor of ISIR, Osaka University in 1992. In 2001 Prof. Kawai was appointed Director of the Nanoscience and Nanotechnology Center, Osaka University.

Professor Kawai has received many notable honors and awards. In 1979 he received the Young Chemists prize from the Chemical Society. The Ichimura Foundation awarded him the Prize of Science in 1994. Professor Kawai was Project Leader of COE “ Atomic Scale Processing for the creation of Highly Harmonized Functional Materials” from the Japanese Ministry of Education in 1997. In 2000 he received the Divisional Award of the Chemical Society of Japan. In 2001, Osaka University presented Prof. Kawai with the Man of the Year award.

Dr. Kawai’s current research interests are DNA Nanotechnology. Also, he is working on Scanning Probe Microscopy researches on DNA and Protein molecules. He is developing DNA based Bio-electronic Devices. His research interests also include: Magnetic and Ferroelectric Artificial Lattices; Bio-mimetic Sensors (Super Five-senses) and Memories (Brain type Memory); and Fabrication of Functional Thin Films by Laser MBE.