[2S01e] 10. ASPIRE - Part 6

5:37 PM - 5:40 PM JST(8:37 AM - 8:40 AM UTC)

[2ASPR-20] My First Career in Academia

○Tatsumi Imada¹ (1. The University of Osaka (Japan))

Keywords:

Lightning talk

It has been nine years since I was assigned to my first laboratory. Although my majority has shifted somewhat as my research has progressed, what has remained consistent is my focus on analysis of intracellular reactions. My first research target was a measurement of intracellular metabolite in specific sites of plants. When I was master student, I realized that the metabolic flow on the pathway is important to investigate the metabolic state in the cell, and I contacted Prof. Shimizu to study metabolic engineering, especially measurement techniques of metabolic fluxes. After coming to the current laboratory, I focused on physiological studies focused on the metabolic pathway in cyanobacteria. Especially, I studied the technique to determine the intracellular metabolic fluxes with their perturbation. As I pursued my own research as a postdoc, I realized that it was necessary not only to conduct fundamental research but also to develop practically useful strains such as bioproduction strain, and that screening would be essential to achieve this. That is why, I visited Prof. Huimin Zhao’s laboratory in The University of Illinois Urbana/Champaign as part of ASPIRE project for one month and a half. He is an expert in synthetic biology and protein engineering using robotics. Although I had originally planned to stay for three months, my stay ended up being shorter than expected due to visa procedures and administrative matters. Although my stay was brief, I conducted experiments at my host institution. Because I was working on the development of the basic cell to assimilate formate with engineered Escherichia coli, at the University of Illinois, I worked on developing a biosensor capable of detecting intracellular formate with high sensitivity. Additionally, I have discussed with many PhD students and postdoctoral researchers in the laboratory outside of main research. Discussing topics with experts from slightly different fields has reminded me that I can obtain insights and ideas I would never have thought of on my own. Although it is March and I have only recently returned to Japan, the ideas I obtained during my short stay are already beginning to serve as the seeds for several research projects. If I have the opportunity in the future, I would like to spend several years there conducting comprehensive study and collaborating with local students and postdocs.