2015 年 55 巻 6 号 p. 311-316
Since the discovery of channelrhodopsins in 2002-2003, the light is now engineered to manipulate physiological states of a cell, a tissue or a body with the progress of three kinds of researches: (1) molecular biology of photoreceptive proteins, (2) cause-effect relationships in the biological system and (3) fabrication of opto-electronics or nanodevices. The near-infrared light, which conveys energy deep into the tissues, is expected to be used for optogenetics with the creation of proteins that change their conformations with such energy or the improvement of nanodevices that transfer the energy to photoreceptive proteins.