Serendipity Symposium 2025

Serendipity Symposium 2025 will be held in Waikiki, Honolulu, Hawaii, USA on December 15-20, 2025. The symposium will provide a valuable forum where researchers and engineers in both academic and industrial sectors will be able to share and discuss their most recent findings and understandings of basic principles, advanced techniques, and applications in biology and medicine.

  • December 18-19, 2025
  • Honolulu, Hawaii, USA


Serendipity Seminar (December 26, 2024)


Shan Riku, Chief Product Officer at BillionToOne, delivered an outstanding talk entitled "Building a Biotech Venture with Lean Startup Principles". The talk inspired many students who were interested in deep-tech startups.


Serendipity Seminar (December 23, 2024)


Amy Shen, a professor at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology, gave an outstanding presentation entitled "Microfluidics and Biosensors: Unlocking New Possibilities in Biophysics and Diagnostics".


Serendipity Seminar (October 21, 2024)


Daewook Kim, an associate professor in the Department of Optical Sciences and Astronomy at the University of Arizona, gave an excellent presentation entitled "Extreme Optics for Astronomical Observations". This event was co-hosted with the SPIE Student Chapter at the University of Tokyo.


Serendipity Seminar (September 19, 2024)


Francesco Del Giudice, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical Engineering at Swansea University, gave an outstanding talk entitled "Fluid formulation design for microfluidic applications".


Serendipity Seminar (August 30, 2024)


Yang Zhang, an associate professor at Harbin Institute of Technology, delivered an excellent talk entitled "Leveraging AI for Cellular Image Analysis and Aptamer Probes Designed for Molecular Target Recognition".


Serendipity Seminar (August 2, 2024)


Terence Tsz Wai Wong, an associate professor in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering and an associate director in the Center for Medical Imaging and Analysis at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, delivered an excellent talk entitled "Next-Generation Histological Imaging Devices Empowered by Deep Learning".


Serendipity Seminar (May 24, 2024)


Ayuko Hoshino, a professor in the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo, delivered an excellent presentation entitled "Exosomal protein-mediated inter-organ communication: roles in disease etiology and biomarker potential".


Serendipity Seminar (May 8, 2024)


Yasuteru Shigeta, a professor of theoretical biophysics and chemistry at the University of Tsukuba, gave a fantastic talk about how to bridge chemistry to different fields through theoretical and computational chemistry.


Serendipity Seminar (April 8, 2024)


David Juncker, a professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at McGill University, delivered an excellent presentation entitled "Towards better diagnostics and biomarkers: microfluidics, DLP/LCD 3D printing, multiplexing, and single extracellular vesicle analysis".


Serendipity Symposium 2024 (March 10-13, 2024)


Serendipity Symposium 2024 was held at ANA InterContinental Ishigaki Resort on Ishigaki Island in Okinawa, Japan on March 10-13, 2024. This event was sponsored by Fujihara Foundation of Science and attended by about 70 researchers worldwide including more than 10 plenary speakers including Prof. Paul Park (KAIST), Prof. Amy Shen (OIST), Prof. C. T. Lim (NUS), Prof. Qionghai Dai (Tsinghua Univ.), and Prof. Nicolai Siegel (LMU).


Serendipity Seminar (October 13, 2023)


Etsuo A. Susaki, a professor in the School of Medicine at Juntendo University, gave an excellent presentation about the development of a 3D cell cloud based on cell-omics technology.


Serendipity Seminar (September 8, 2023)


Aydogan Ozcan, Chancellors's Professor and HHMI Investigator in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of California, Los Angeles, delivered a fascinating talk about computational microscopy and diffractive imaging enabled by deep learning.


Serendipity Seminar (August 10, 2023)


Tom Cohen Ben-Arye, a senior scientist at the Good Food Institute in Israel, delivered an inspiring presentation about opportunities in the R&D of alternative proteins.


Serendipity Seminar (June 1, 2023)


Fabio Di Francesco, a professor in the Department of Chemistry and Industrial Chemisty at the University of Pisa, gave an interesting talk about minimally invasive health monitoring.


Serendipity Seminar (May 26, 2023)


Sigurd Braun, a professor of genetics at Justus-Liebig-University of Giessen, gave an impressive talk about using a simple genetic model system to decipher complex regulatory pathways and dynamics.


Serendipity Seminar (March 16, 2023)


Dr. Mariko Egawa in the MIRAI Technology Institute at Shiseido Co., Ltd. presented her excellent research results about non-invasive molecular sensing of skin using spectroscopic techniques.


Serendipity Seminar (March 3, 2023)


Lingyan Shi, an associate professor in the Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering, the University of California, San Diego, gave a superb presentation about multimodal microscopy for studying metabolic dynamics in aging and diseases.


Serendipity Seminar (February 27, 2023)


Han Wei Hou, an associate professor in the School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering and Lee Kong Chian School of Medicine at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, gave his second Serendipity Seminar presentation about recent results from his work on electro-mechano-phenotyping of single leukocytes for label-free immunoprofiling.


Serendipity Seminar (February 20, 2023)


Dr. Prabhat K. Dwivedi in the Center for Nanosciences at Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur gave an impressive talk about customized SERS substrates on single platforms for point-of-care applications.


Serendipity Seminar (January 19, 2023)


Yoko Yamanishi, a professor of mechanical engineering at Kyushu University, presented recent results and findings from her group's work on emergent functions of electrically induced bubbles.


Serendipity Symposium 2022 (December 7, 2022)


Serendipity Symposium 2022 was held at Aulani, a Disney Resort & Spa, in Hawaii, USA on December 7, 2022, co-located with the "IEEE Micro- and Nano-Technology in Medicine" Conference. It was composed of two sessions: oral presentations by Prof. Walker Peterson at the University of Tokyo, Prof. Tzu-Ming Liu at the University of Macau, and Prof. Angela Wu at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and poster presentations on the beach. It was our first time to try the "posters on the beach" session, but it was a big success despite a windy weather. We all enjoyed interacting with each other after the long pandemic and look forward to coming back to Hawaii.


Serendipity Seminar (November 24, 2022)


Chong-Xin Shan, the vice president of Zhengzhou University and a professor of physics ad microelectronics, gave an inspiring talk about the physics and engineering of diamond. It attracted a number of researchers who were interested in sensing, imaging, and device physics.


Serendipity Seminar (November 10, 2022)


Taisuke Tomita, a professor of neuropathology and neuroscience in the School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tokyo, gave an excellent talk about the molecular and cellular pathomechanisms of Alzheimer's disease.


Serendipity Seminar (October 5, 2022)


Dino Di Carlo, a professor of bioengineering at UCLA, visited the University of Tokyo and gave a fantastic talk about his group's nanovial technolgoy titled "Linking genes to function for thousands of single cells using nanovial technology".


Serendipity Seminar (September 16, 2022)


Felix Reichel, a graduate student at Max Planck Institute, gave an interesting talk about a method based on deformability cytometry for studying COVID-19.


Serendipity Workshop 2022 (May 14, 2022)


Serendipity Workshop 2022 (chaired by Prof. Takeshi Hayakawa) was held at Chuo University (Korakuen Campus) to share and discuss recent findings and understandings of basic principles, advanced techniques, and applications of next-generation cytometry. The workshop was composed of 3 sessions: 2 oral presentation sessions (including 2 plenary talks) and 1 poster presentation session.


Serendipity Symposium 2021 (December 20-21, 2021)


Serendipity Symposium 2021 was co-held with Pacifichem 2021 online to share and discuss recent findings and understandings of basic principles, advanced techniques, and applications of next-generation cytometry. The symposium was composed of 6 sessions: 5 oral presentation sessions and 1 poster presentation session.

Serendipity Seminar (December 20, 2021)


Tamiki Komatsuzaki, a professor in the Research Center of Mathematics for Social Creativity and Research Institute for Electronic Science at Hokkaido University, gave an informative lecture about machine learning for Raman imaging titled "On-the-fly Raman image microscopy by reinforcement machine learning" at the University of Tokyo on December 20, 2021.


Serendipity Seminar (December 2, 2021)


Jochen Guck, a professor of physics at Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nürnberg in Germany and a director of biological optomechanics at Max Planck Institute for the Science of Light, gave an inspiring talk about biological optomechanics titled "Physical phenotyping at rates of 1,000 cells/sec" at the University of Tokyo on December 2, 2021.


Serendipity Seminar (September 8, 2021)


Yujiro Maeda, a director of biodesign at the University of Tokyo Hospital, gave an informative lecture about biodesign titled "Incubating medical technologies using BIODESIGN" at the University of Tokyo on September 8, 2021.


Serendipity Seminar (July 29, 2021)


Maik Herbig, a research assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Tokyo, gave an interesting talk about image-activated cell sorting titled "Real-time image-based cell identification" at the University of Tokyo on July 29, 2021.


Serendipity Seminar (July 9, 2021)


Masaru Ishii, a professor of immunology and cell biology at Osaka University, gave an excellent talk about intravital multiphoton imaging titled "Intravital multiphoton optical imaging dissecting immune cellular dynamics in vivo" at the University of Tokyo on July 9, 2021.


Serendipity Symposium 2020 (December 15-16, 2020)


Despite the difficult times due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Serendipity Symposium 2020 was held in Marinart, Shimizu, Shizuoka, Japan on December 15-16, 2020 to share and discuss recent findings and understandings of basic principles, advanced techniques, and applications of next-generation cytometry. The symposium was composed of 5 sessions: two oral presentation sessions about new technologies and applications, one session about guest talks, one poster presentation session, and one student presentation session. It was attended by a total of 73 people (mostly in person with partial Zoom-based participation) from all over the world.

Zoom Serendipity Seminars (April 24, May 29, June 26, July 30, September 17, 2020)


A series of Serendipity Seminars were held virtually in response to the global pandemic of COVID-19. Serendipity Lab members attended the seminars from all over the world. Ryo Iizuka (Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Tokyo, Japan), Kevin Tsia (Professor, Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, University of Hong Kong, China), Han Wei Hou (Assistant Professor, School of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore), and Masaki Anraku (Director, Department of Thoracic Surgery, Tokyo Metropolitan Geriatric Hospital and Institute of Gerontology, Japan) gave excellent talks about their cutting-edge technology and fantastic results.


Serendipity Workshop 2020 (June 17, 2020)


Serendipity Workshop 2020 was held as a virtual meeting on June 17, 2020 in response to the global pandemic of COVID-19. Participants connected over social media to create foundations for future collaboration. The workshop provided students, postdocs, and young scientists with opportunities to broadcast their work to a broader audience worldwide.


Serendipity Seminar (November 28, 2019)


Dr. Rachel Won, an international editor of Nature Photonics, gave two inspiring talks titled "a professional career in scientific journal editing" and "writing and submitting the strongest paper". The event was co-organized by UTokyo SPIE Student Chapter, UTokyo OSA Student Chapter, XPS, ALPS, FoPM, and Serendipity Lab and attended by more than 120 people such as faculty, postdocs, and students who are interested in becoming editors or writing good papers. Luckily, Dr. Noriaki Horiuchi, another editor of Nature Photonics, was available to attend the event.


Serendipity Seminar (November 20, 2019)


Malcolm Kadodwala, a professor of chemistry at University of Glasgow in UK, gave an exciting talk titled "Chemical nanophotonics: from chiral sensing to spatially selective chemistry on the nanoscale" at the University of Tokyo on November 20, 2019.


Serendipity Symposium 2019 (November 9-11, 2019)


Serendipity Symposium 2019 (in other words, the full-global kickoff serendipity symposium), was held in Fukutake Hall at the University of Tokyo on November 9-11, 2019 to discuss the mission of Serendipity Lab and its 5-year plans. The symposium was composed of seven sessions: (1) IACS technologies (4 talks), (2) IACS applications (4 talks), (3) posters (20 posters), (4) microfluidic biotechnologies, (5) special guest talks, (6) student presentations (9 talks), (7) innovative technologies and applications. About 90 people including 7 coordinators from Japan, China, Korea, Australia, Canada, Mexico, and USA with diverse backgrounds at different research institutions attended and enjoyed discussing their research results, new ideas, and future plans.


Serendipity Seminar (September 30, 2019)


Nicolai Siegel, a professor of physiological chemistry at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat, gave a fantastic talk about understanding cell-to-cell heterogeneity in pathogens, in particular Trypanosoma brucei, at the University of Tokyo on September 30, 2019.


Serendipity Seminar (July 24, 2019)


Gustavo Rohde, an associate professor of biomedical engineering and electrical and computer engineering at the University of Virginia, gave an excellent tutorial about how to classify cell images at the University of Tokyo on July 24, 2019.


Serendipity Seminar (July 17, 2019)


Yan Li, a lab manager in Canadian Coordinator Prof. Robert Campbell's research group, gave a great talk about the research group and her work at the University of Tokyo on July 17, 2019.


Serendipity Seminar (July 10, 2019)


Christophe Danelon, an associate professor at Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands, gave a fantastic talk about how to build an artificial cell at the University of Tokyo on July 10, 2019.


Serendipity Symposium (May 31, 2019)


The half-global kickoff serendipity symposium was held at the University of Tokyo on May 31, 2019 to discuss the mission of Serendipity Lab and its 5-year plans. We had three sessions: (1) IACS technology (4 talks), (2) IACS applications (4 talks), (3) other technologies (4 talks). About 70 people with diverse backgrounds at different research institutions attended and enjoyed discussing new ideas and future plans.