Kiwamu Takemoto

Professor

Mie University Graduate School, Faculty of Medicine, Department of Biochemistry

Q1. What do you do?

 We are studying the mechanisms of memory formation. In particular, it is important to understand the molecular functions during the memory acquisition, consolidation and maintenance in living animals, so we are also developing original optical manipulation techniques that is useful for this purpose.

Q2. What have you applied to your current work from what you learned at Nagai Lab, and how has it been utilized.

 At Nagai Lab, we had conducted research on the development of elemental technologies related to the CALI method. Please refer to the paper for the content, and the current research is technically an extension of that work. For example, in a paper published in 2017 (Takemoto at al. Nat. Biotechnol. 2017), we succeeded in developing a CALI method for memory molecules by using eosin discovered in Nagai Lab (Takemoto et al. ACS. Chem. Biol. 2011). Also, the on-demand optical manipulation technology that we are currently developing has its origins in Nagai Lab. It has been about 13 years since I graduated from Nagai Lab, and the technology I developed at that time is not only being used in my own research, but is also being spread to researchers in a variety of fields. One of the interesting aspects of technological development is to "spread it to the world," and I think this is something I learned at Nagai Lab. I was very lucky to be able to be in the early days of Nagai Lab and learn how PI should organize their labs. I still feel that it was a very valuable experience for me especially since I had just set up my own lab last year.

Q3. Message to juniors

 I think that the quality of research is determined by the number of "enthusiastic people" in the lab. In there, a mutual activation and positive influence on each other would occur and as a result, new values and interesting research would be born. Perhaps this repetition is the history of the laboratory and the progress of life science research. The early days of the Nagai Lab, where I participated, were exciting and precious time for such enthusiastic people to gather. It has been a long time since I graduated from Nagai Lab, but my colleagues from those days are still active in various fields.