Membranology Unit

A new postdoc, Enaam, joined our team. Welcome Enaam, we are so excited to work with you!

Our Ph.D. student Kou who led the Nature Aging paper officially received his Ph.D. today. Congrats Dr. Suda! We, lab members, are all proud of your achievement!

Our paper appeared on the cover of the Nature Aging March issue!

The paper led by our former postdoc Shinju is out!

Our new paper led by Kou, Yohsuke, and Hana is online in Nature Aging. Damage to cell membranes causes cell aging. Thanks again to all the team members, friends, reviewers, and the editors. Numerous people, visibly and invisibly, contributed to it.

Our former intern, Ms. Hiyori Mori at Keio U, won a poster presentation prize! In addition to the prize selected by the professors, she also won the third prize of students' choice. Congrats Hiyori, we are all proud of your achievement!

Our unit's research got the privilege of being featured in the Bioconvergence Center Series Podcast, along with Prof. Amy Shen Unit's research. We would like to thank DJ Nick Luscombe, the OIST CPR section, and all other contributors.

A paper led by the former postdoc Shinju, and the other paper led by three equally-contributed first authors, Ph.D. student Kou, STA Yohsuke, and postdoc Hana, have been accepted two days in a row. The best moment in our lab's history. Congrats & big thank you to all contributors!

Ms. Anastasiia Ishchenko will be working with us for one term as a rotation student. Welcome Ana, let's have fun together.

Ph.D. student Ms. Sara Abdelaal, supervised by Prof. Marco Terenzio and co-supervised by Kono, successfully defended her thesis. Congrats, Dr. Abdelaal!!

Ph.D. student Mr. Kojiro Suda won the best poster award at the kick-off meeting of "A3 FORESIGHT PROGRAM Cellular Senescence: From Pathophysiology to Treatment" in Osaka. Congrats Kou. We truly appreciate the organizers, Prof. Naoko Ohtani @ Osaka Metropolitan U and Dr. Akiko Takahashi @ Japanese Foundation for Cancer Research.

Postdoc Dr. Shinju Sugiyama will move on to his next journey at Bacchus Bio Innovation. He worked with us for 4.5 years, and his contribution to the team was huge. Thank you so much, Shinju. Good luck with your future!

The review article led by postdoc Shinju has been published. Congrats!

The first Ph.D. student in the Kono Unit, Mr. Hunter Barbee, successfully defended his thesis. Congrats, Dr. Barbee! We are proud of you!

Yuta's paper that reports new plasma membrane/cell wall repair factors has been published. Congrats!

We welcomed a new postdoc from Malaysia, Nurhanani (Hana). She is an experienced scientist with a bright personality. Her expertise is quite cross-disciplinary (molecular biology, immunology, bioinformatics and more). We are excited to work with you, Hana!

We needed to say good-bye to our lab mates, a post-doc Yumiko and a rotation student Yuta. The good news is that they stay in OIST. Yuta will come back to us in Sep 2021 as a Ph.D. student, and Yumiko will move to the Husnik unit. Yumiko worked with us for two years and contributed a lot to the work on the plasma membrane damage responses. We will miss her Okinawan mind, "nankurunaisa (If you work hard and stay on the right path, a better day will come in the end)". Yumiko, thank you very much, and all the best for your next journey!

Claire started her new life as an intern student. She previously worked at OIST Innovation Square Incubator! Welcome Claire, Let's have fun together!

Yuta joined our lab as a rotation student. His research interest is yeast stress responses and lifespan. Welcome, yeast lover!

Jan joined us for his thesis research. His research interest is in organismal aging. Welcome to our lab, Jan! We are all thrilled to work with you during your exciting Ph.D. journey.

Sara and Miki are moved to Terenzio Unit as the laboratory in Lab4 starts operation. You will be missed!

Shinju and Keiko are awarded the kakenhi grant (Shinju: grant-in-aid for early-carrier scientists, Keiko: grant-in-aid for scientific research B). We are grateful for JSPS and reviewers.

We visited Blue lagoon at Rizzan Sea-Park Hotel to welcome new rotation students Emily, Kojiro and Yatzu, as well as a new STA Miki! The lab is expanding. We are thrilled to work with new members!

Lab lunch at the Orange, Kafuu hotel, to say good-bye to the rotation students. Munissa, Jan and Masato, you guys were exceptionally productive! We really enjoyed working with you. Thank you!!

We went out to have welcome lunch at Moon beach hotel. This term, we host three talented and highly motivated rotation students, Munissa, Jan and Masato. The lab is full of energy!

Today is Allyson's last day. She showed her talent not only as an experimentalist but as an illustrator! She made pretty bookmarks for us. Thank you Allyson, we will follow up your beautiful results to finish up a paper. Best of the luck with your Ph.D. life!

We went out to have a welcome lunch for intern student Allyson and postdoc Shinju. It was all you can eat sushi. Fantastic!

Dr. Yohsuke Moriyama is awarded the Kakenhi grant, Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory). Congrats Yohsuke!

We had a welcome lunch for rotation student Dongpeng. He will work on senescence in mice. Welcome Dongpeng, let's have fun together!

A farewell lunch for Aisulu (rotation student) and Chris (intern student) @ Shimajikan. Say "schiesser (okinawan lion)", instead of cheese!