Itami Lab Reunion Symposium, IKOCS, was huge success!!! 140 people gathered in RIKEN! Great lectures, discussion, and party!!! So many thanks for coming and also to current members for dedicated organization! GOAT!

Mission complete! As a CNRS chemistry ambassador, I did 7 lectures at 7 different places in France in 11 days! 3800 km by trains! It was hard but huge fun to find lots of seeds for future collaboration! Thanks everyone! I will come back!!

Today we have the pleasure to host Ken Itami in Rennes as a @cnrs.fr ambassador. Fantastic talk! 👍 @kenitami.bsky.social @iscr-rennes.bsky.social

We welcome Lucas (6 month master course study) and Ayaka (staff scientist) in Itami Lab!! So nice to have you two! Let’s explore crazy chemistry!!!

It was huge fun!! Many thanks Murakami Lab!!! See you next at RIKEN!!

Kei Murakami (previous staff) and Yota Sakakibara (previous student) in front of beautiful campus. Super great host!

Yesterday I fully enjoyed the really exciting discussion and mixing with Murakami Lab, Kwansei Gakuin University. Door to door it took me 6 hours to come but worth it! Today and tomorrow, I will do extensive short course and lecture!

Thanks Larry!!!

Extremely excited to be selected as CNRS Ambassador for Chemical Sciences in France! I expect the upcoming lecture tour to strengthen the ties between French and Japanese science, fostering a spirit of mutual inspiration.  www.inc.cnrs.fr/fr/cnrsinfo/...

Tomoki’s work making non-emissive [6]CPP fluorescent by simple multiple methyl substitution is now out @chemicalscience.rsc.org ! We hope this simple, yet pronounced ‘methyl effect’ facilitates the design and application of CPP-based materials in various fields! 
pubs.rsc.org/en/Content/A...

A bioactive nanocarbon that targets cross-species PPIs. We discovered a molecular nanocarbon (clionene) that inhibits PPIs in insect diapause and human immune signalings. Very exciting collaboration with Larry Scott @scott61144.bsky.social and Hasegawa lab! chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

Happy birthday Prof. Noyori and Dorae-mon!

Don’t miss Noyori’s autobiography “Research should be fresh, simple, and clear”, recently released !

l-i-c.org/ryoji-noyori...

Could caterpillar guts help to manufacture nanomaterials? Check out the RIKEN research highlight! www.riken.jp/en/news_pubs...

We very much enjoyed the lecture by Bruce Yu from Academia Sinica, Taiwan! Very insightful and exciting!! Thanks Bruce!

So great to have two very active players in our lab! Welcome Asim and Ando-kun to Itami Lab!! It was very nice welcome party last night with LOTS of Indian curry!

A great collaborative paper with Jean Bouffard Lab is out in JACS! From your arenes and molecular nanocarbons, you can make C-H amination products! My favorite examples are double amination of CPP and coronene! Congrats Rikuo, Sajan, and the team! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

A simple, Mg-mediated, 12-fold dearomative esterification of carbon nanobelt, dedicated to Fraser Stoddart in @angewandtechemie.bsky.social. Huge congrats to Tsubasa, Takehisa & the team! Nice artwork created by Issey Takahashi!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Thanks for the highlight article!

Thanks Larry!!!

Cycloparaazine, a full-azine carbon nanoring - Congratulations , Ken! www.nature.com/articles/s41... #PiSky

The first all-azine nanoring is now out in @NatureComms. The very strong collaborative team of Nagoya-Munster-RIKEN made this possible, particularly Till Drennhaus. Many thanks and congrats to all involved! Issey Takahashi made another eye-catching artwork shown here.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Our in-insect nanocarbon synthesis is now out in @ScienceMagazine. Enjoy our crazy campaign feeding molecules to insects densely packed with diverse enzymes and let them produce new functional compounds! Many thanks and huge congrats to all involved!! science.org/doi/10.1126/sc…

Today, we started our second lab “Expanded Chemical Space Team” in RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science, in addition to “Molecule Creation Lab” in RIKEN Pioneering Research Institute!! We will explore the potential of previously untapped chemical space!!!

Yesterday we had Prof. Gong Chen from Nankai Univ! We all were very excited to see his amazingly simple, robust, and smart tools for peptide and protein modifications! We will start using his “magic” solvents/additives in RIKEN’s chemistry! Many thanks Gong!!

伊丹研（理研）では、研究員（講師・助教相当）もしくはポスドクを募集しています！ Itami lab is looking for Research Scientist (equivalent to Lecturer or assistant prof) and/or postdoc! www.riken.jp/careers/rese... www.riken.jp/en/careers/r...

It was so exciting to host Harry Anderson from Oxford!! All RIKEN scientists were blown away with the beauty and properties of his porphyrin-based molecular wires and nanorings! Thanks a million Harry for inspiring lecture and discussion!

Great belt! #PiSky

A Japanese-German research team has created and analysed carbon nanobelts containing thiophene. Such structures are particularly conductive and potentially suitable as optoelectronic components. @dfg.de doi.org/10.1038/s414... & www.uni-muenster.de/news/view.ph...

It's finally out – actually out and in print! Many thanks to @jcornlab.bsky.social @matthiasmuhar.bsky.social @jakobfarnung.bsky.social and all the fantastic collaborators. What started as pure curiosity lead to an amazing find! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

The Kimizuka lab in Kyushu uncovered long-lifetime phosphorescence properties. These distinctive features of the thiophene belts should inspire a range of applications such as optoelectronic devices and polar materials. Stay tuned! (4/4)

Thiophene belt’s two-dimensional layer assembly on metal surfaces was discovered by the groups of Profs. Mönig, Amirjalayer, and Ravoo in Münster and Munich! (3/4)

Not only making the first thiophene belts, but also Hiroki discovered their exciting structural and optoelectronic features including unidirectional columnar stacking with high dipole moment in crystals as well as in a just-evaporated sample with the help of Hirotoshi Sakamoto  (2/4)

Our thiophene belt paper is now out in @naturecomms.bsky.social ! This amazing connecting-the-dot molecules (structurally beautiful aromatic belt + function-rich thiophene) were designed and synthesized by our very own Hiroki Shudo! Congrats all!  (1/4) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Obituary: James Fraser Stoddart (1942-2024) chemist and nanotechnology pioneer who built molecular machines https://go.nature.com/40MvkI9

Hello! Just created an account on Bluesky. A chemist believing the power of molecules. Synthetic chemistry, molecular nanocarbon science, catalysis, and chemical biology. Be unique, go crazy, be happy!