Research in the land of rising sun…
Posted by Shreeharsha T Tarikere, on 14 September 2010
I am a graduate student from Indian Institute for Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune, India. I wish to share some of my work and life experiences in Japan from a recent visit. Our lab works on development and evolution of insect wings. I am interested in understanding the development of lepidopteran wings using Bombyx mori ( silkmoth) as a model system. Initially at my place it was an ordeal working experiments mostly for the lack of technical expertise on silkmoth experiments and lack of availability of resources.
We decided to carry out some experiments in the University of Tokyo, Kashiwa campus to study the development and evolution of insect wings, specifically lepidopteran wing development, using the silkmoth as a model organism. Expertise on studies in silkworm development is abundant in Japan as there are many research groups working on this various aspects of silkworm development. To be housed in one of the best universities in asia was a privilege and the facilities and research truly matched the stature of one of the best institutes in the world.

I was in Prof. Haruhiko Fujiwara’s lab which works on Silkworms, Butterflies and different aspects of their genetics and development. The facilities in the lab were really state of the art, organization of the lab was immaculate and expertise vast which helped my work progress smoothly. One hurdle was definitely that of the language which I should admit was a more than what I anticipated, most people in the campus speak in Japanese, study and even discuss science in Japanese, but it seemed trivial with the kind nature of the people, every time they put an effort beyond their way to help you in every situation in lab or on outside. A little Japanese learned beforehand came in handy at times and also got a smile across people there who always appreciated generously for every one of my efforts to speak their language.
I started experiments here as soon as I came in but for a week or so they really did not work as I had to get adjusted to the setup and find the reagents and understand the instruments (some of which had complete Japanese menus!). With the help of the friendly lab members things moved rapidly and was able to understand the techniques they used and apply to solve issues which had troubled me in research so far. In a lab of around 20 people everyone chipped in whenever I had problems to trouble shoot with the best they could and made work progress fast and life easier. The discussions with my sensei (used to address professor in Japanese) were very helpful to understand the development of silkworm and to apply techniques like immuno histochemistry and RNA in situs. As these experiments were done in the lab on a regular basis and also the worms were studied extensively here, hence work moved smoothly and results were easy to come once I was settled in. I could work out all the standardization of Chromatin Immunoprecipitaion (ChIP) with the abundant silkworm resource which was excellently maintained. There wasn’t a single hindrance for an experiment no matter when I wanted to perform them because of the excellent maintenance of the larvae and the whole-hearted support of the lab.
During this trip I also had a golden opportunity to interact with other developmental biologists at the JSDB 2010 meeting at Kyoto. The discussions in the conference included various interesting aspects of developmental biology ranging from growth control, organogenesis to mathematical modeling. The meeting had over 300 poster presentations, where I also got an opportunity to present my work so far and discuss with the best researches in japan and also world-over. It was interesting to discuss with various interesting research projects from japan and other places, also helping understand our own research problems better and flashing some new and interesting insights.

The talks by Prof Eric Wieschaus and Prof Roel Nusse were enlightening and it was really a great opportunity to interact with these scientists, who were very encouraging and made the science more interesting , by inducing many new questions in the mind and also helping our research interests through superlative discussions. apart from the conference Kyoto as a citywas serene and beautiful, having been to Tokyo this part of the world seemed a page from the ancient and rich traditional Japan and a wholly different landscape from what I had seen or imagined.
People in Japan were very kind, polite, peace loving and sweet who helped in every step of my stay. There a lot of international students around especially in my residence where they were very cooperative and were as kind as Japanese themselves. They organized various events from the art of wearing Japanese yukata (traditional Japanese dress) to that of attending the local city festival on weekends. They helped with every problem and also make stay fun filled and enjoyable in every way. Cycling was the best transport in Japan for there were free lanes; it was always fun riding to university through a very beautiful park. For being a vegetarian the other constant problem was food, which I had to cook to survive in a land where nothing was vegetarian. The versatile kitchen facility eased out cooking for my survival and sometimes the vibrant community joined in usually watching football worldcup cheering for Japan or South Korea. It was the charm of the place and people around that made problems gradually melt away etching wonderful memories, easing life and making work enjoyable in a very pleasant ambience.
This visit helped move rapid strides in answering my research question and allowed me to learn newer methods to apply and progress in my research work. I am sure a lot of research problems will be solved and this work will raise new and interesting questions for me to pursue further ahead in research. I hope my experience will encourage more people to work across borders to learn the best from all the great learning centers and Japan in particular, which has people who work really hard and help each other to reach greater heights in their endeavors.
I would like to thank the Development and APDBN fellowships for their encouragement and generous support for my travel and stay in Japan. I would like to thank the Prof Fujiwara and University of Tokyo for the kind invite, support and warm welcome into their facility. My sincere thanks to the lab members of his lab and also other labs which helped and supported to the fullest, whose untiring help and encouragement helped me enjoy both work and stay in Japan. I would like to thank my supervisor Prof. Shashidhara and IISER pune for initiating this interaction and supporting all the way in my graduate study. I would like to thank node for allowing me to share my unforgettable memories of Japan.



Ken Zaret is Joseph Leidy Professor in the Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, the Associate Director of the Institute for Regenerative Medicine, and the Co-Director of the Epigenetics Program at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He agreed to be interviewed by Development and talks about his life as a scientist.
Rodent embryonic stem (ES) cells that are derived from blastocysts self-renew without mitogenic growth factors and robustly colonize chimaeras, whereas egg cylinder-derived stem cells (EpiSCs) require fibroblast growth factor and contribute poorly to chimaeras. Nevertheless, expression of a single reprogramming gene, such as Klf4 or Nanog, can return EpiSCs to a molecular and developmental pluripotent ‘ground state’. Now, on p.
During neurogenesis in the Drosophila optic lobe, a wave of differentiation that converts neuroepithelial cells into neuroblasts sweeps across the neuroepithelial sheet in a medial to lateral direction. This differentiation wave is preceded by the ‘proneural wave’: the transient expression of the proneural gene lethal of scute [l(1)sc]. Now, Tetsuya Tabata and colleagues report that EGFR and Notch signalling play pivotal and coordinated roles in proneural wave progression in the Drosophila optic lobe (see p.
The embryonic heart tube forms from bilateral groups of cardiomyocytes that move towards the embryonic midline where they merge. The transcription factor Hand2 is essential for this ‘cardiac fusion’ but its downstream effectors are unknown. By studying zebrafish heart development, Deborah Yelon and colleagues now identify Fibronectin as a component of the Hand2 pathway that mediates cardiac morphogenesis (see p.
The number, size and shape of mammalian teeth vary widely – just compare a person’s smile with a dog’s ‘smile’. But what controls the patterning of dentition? Mutations in Wise (Sostdc1), which encodes an inhibitor of Lrp5- and Lrp6-dependent Wnt signalling, cause patterning defects in tooth development in mice. Now, by investigating the pathways modulated by Wise, Robb Krumlauf and co-workers show that crosstalk between Wnt and other signalling pathways controls mouse tooth development (see p.
During early embryogenesis, morphogen gradients specify the neural plate along the anterior-posterior axis. Canonical Wnt signalling causes the posteriorization of neural tissues. Consequently, Wnt signal attenuation in the embryo’s anterior region is required for the determination of the head region; but how is this achieved? On p.
Asymmetric cell divisions generate cell diversity during development, and the orientation of the axis of these divisions determines the future position of differentiated cells. But is the asymmetrical localization of the polarity (PAR) proteins that control asymmetric cell division regulated by extracellular or intracellular signals? On p.
Plant KNOX homeodomain transcription factors maintain pluripotent stem cells in the shoot apical meristem, and recent studies have uncovered novel roles for the KNOX proteins in sculpting plant form and its diversity, which Angela Hay and Miltos Tsiantis review. See the Review on p