Our research team seeks to uncover the protein cage’s potentials as powerful tools for molecular and synthetic biology. We are preliminarily focusing on a cage-forming lumazine synthase and exploiting and expanding the protein cages through redesign and directed evolution. Namely, current projects are aimed (i) to develop a method for directed evolution of proteins; (ii) to establish a new biotechnology for heterologous protein production; and (iii) to understand the theory underlying the hierarchical assembly for future artificial compartment designs. We anticipate that our protein cage-based biotechnologies will contribute significantly to the development of interdisciplinary research realms ranging from basic biophysics, chemistry to therapeutics.