Serendipity Symposium 2023

Serendipity Symposium 2023 focuses on technologies and applications of next-generation cytometry. Topics covered in the symposium include, but are not limited to, the high-throughput, high-content, and high-dimensional aspects of diverse cytometry technologies (e.g., fluorescence microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, super-resolution imaging, microfluidics, deep learning) as well as a novel class of cytometric applications enabled by the technologies. 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 of next-generation cytometry.

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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.


Attendance to SPIE Photonoics West (February 1-6, 2020)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda attended SPIE Photonics West in San Francisco along with his colleagues and gave a BIOS Hot Topics plenary talk about intelligent image-activated cell sorting on February 1, 2020 and an invited talk about high-throughput vibrational flow cytometry on February 2, 2020.


Visit to Chan Zuckerberg BioHub (January 31, 2020)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda visited Chan Zuckerberg Biohub in San Francisco along with his colleagues and gave an invited talk about intelligent image-activated cell sorting on January 31.


Visit to Carnegie Institute for Science (January 30, 2020)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda visited Carnegie Institue for Science at Stanford University in the San Francisco Bay Area and gave an invited talk about intelligent image-activated cell sorting on January 30.


Visit to OPTIC and National Chiao Tung University (December 4-7, 2019)


Hideharu Mikami, an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, gave an invited talk at the Optics & Photonics Taiwan International Conference (OPTIC) at National Chung Hsing University in Taiwan. He also visited Prof. Chia-Wei Sun, the Taiwanese coordinator of Serendipity Lab, to give a talk and exchange ideas with researchers in the Department of Photonics at National Chiao Tung University in Taiwan.


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.


Attendance to POEM (November 11-14, 2019)


Kotaro Hiramatsu, an assistant professor at the University of Tokyo, attended the 12th International Photonics and Optoelectronics Meetings in Wuhan, China to give an invited talk. He met and exchanged ideas with a few Chinese members of Serendipity Lab there.


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.

Attendance to CNGC Symposium (November 8, 2019)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda attended the 2019 CNGC Symposium (Center for Next-Generation Cytometry) at Yeongbingwan Hall in Incheon, South Korea chaired by Korean coordinator, Prof. Tae-Hyun Yoon on November 8, 2019. Goda gave a plenary talk about intelligent image-activated cell sorting.


Attendance to MicroTAS (October 27-31, 2019)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda attended MicroTAS 2019 in Basel, Switzerland and gave a plenary talk about intelligent image-activated cell sorting on October 28, 2019. Goda also received Analytical Chemistry Young Innovator Award from American Chemical Society's journal, Analytical Chemistry.


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.


Attendance to ANZNMF (July 1-3, 2019)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda and his colleagues (Sheng Yan, Kotaro Hiramatsu) attended the 10th Australia and New Zealand Nano and Microfluidics Symposium (ANZNMF) at the University of Wollongong in Australia chaired by Australian coordinator, Prof. Weihua Li from July 1 through July 3, 2019. Goda and Hiramatsu gave plenary and invited talks at the conference, respectively.


Visit to Macquarie University (June 30, 2019)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda and his colleague Sheng Yan visited Macquarie University where Australian player Ming Li works as a lecturer in the field of mechanical engineering. Since she joined this university a few years ago, she has been busy building a research group as well as her research career. We wish her the best of luck.


Attendance to CYTO (June 22-26, 2019)


Chief coordinator Prof. Keisuke Goda and his colleagues (Hideharu Mikami, Kotaro Hiramatsu) attended CYTO (the 34th Congress of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry) at the convention center in Vancouver, Canada from June 22 through June 26, 2019. Goda gave a plenary talk at the conference.


Serendipity Seminar (June 12, 2019)


Kang-Hee Seol, a research assistant professor at Hanyang University and a member of the Center for Next Generation Cytometry (CNGC) in South Korea, gave an excellent talk about the CNGC's research activity at the University of Tokyo on June 12, 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.