Hometown in Japan: Kyoto
Home University: Tohoku University, Faculty of Agriculture, Applied Bio-Sciences: Plant Science
B2: Sophomore, Expected Graduation Date: March 2021
Host Lab at Rice University: Bartel Lab Group
Host Professor: Prof. Bonnie Bartel, Dept. of Biosciences
I want to see what it’ll be like to do research and study in a university in U.S. because I’m interested in studying abroad there. This is the biggest reason why I decided to apply for this program. Also, since I have no experience doing research in a lab, as Japanese undergraduates don’t typically do research until their senior year (B4), I want to experience it earlier, so that I can have a clearer vision of my future.
- Get used to use terms in English related to my major
- Get some hints about the idea of studying abroad in U.S.
- Learn how genes work in a body of plants.
Excerpts from Chihiro’s Weekly Reports
- Week 01: Arrival in the U.S.
- Week 02: First Week in My Research Lab at Rice
- Week 03: Interview with U.S. Student and Researcher
- Week 04: Reflections on English Language & Life in the U.S.
- Week 05: Final Week at Rice University and Research in the U.S. vs. Research in Japan
- Research Project Overview and Poster
- Week 06: Last Week in the U.S.
- Final Report
- Tips for Future Participants
Week 01: Arrival in the U.S.
Here I am in the U.S, about to end the first week of my stay here. Since I was working on exams until August 6th back in Japan, I could not spend a lot time preparing for this program. I completed all of my paper work, which I needed to study in the U.S, and went shopping to buy travel goods, but other than that, I can’t think of anything I did in Japan. Because of that, my first week was really hard, especially in the lab.
During the weekdays, I spent most of my free time trying to catch up what I would be doing in the lab. I didn’t have the chance to visit anywhere in Houston on my own, but I enjoyed walking around Rice University and the nearby neighborhood on my way home. On Wednesday, I walked from my lab to our hotel, and on the way, I enjoyed the nature in the university and residential area. Everywhere I saw, there was green. I really love living with nature, and thought I want to study and live somewhere like here.
One day, one of my friends asked me if I was surprised by anything or if I had experienced a culture shock. I told him, I was surprised at how big everything is and how green Rice University and the neighborhood around it is, but that’s it. I have had no culture shock as of yet. I think it this is thanks to my experience last year. Last year, I was hung out with many international students in Japan and I somehow got used to the environment where people from around the world gather. I like to talk with people who have a different back ground from me, so in that point, I have really enjoyed talking with people here; though I wished badly that I could speak in English better every time I met someone.
I was sometime disappointed by these English problems, but the events and lectures planned during this program motivated me a lot. For instance, listening to “Introduction to Designing a Research Poster” from Dr. Gayle Moran, I got excited to think about the final research poster I will make at the end of this program. Knowing about how to design a poster reduced my anxiousness about the final presentation. However, what made my feelings brighter most was talking to people from my lab at the Welcome Lunch. Just by talking about the project I will be working on, I got excited about my first experience in the lab. I was scared and worried thinking about the lab before the welcome lunch, but now, I am excited and happy to start my research project.
I feel like through this week, the Japanese fellows have also got really closer. Though I sometimes need time to be alone, I really like to talk with them. I am curious about what each of us is doing in each lab, which I couldn’t understand in English at Dr. Gayle’s talk on Friday, so I would like to talk with them more about our projects in Japanese. I am sure that knowing what they are doing will motivate me a lot. I was worrying a lot to thinking about how little I know about my major compared to others, but these days. I have been worried that because the other Japanese Fellows are older than me and have more experiences in their university that my own knowledge would be much less than theirs. I don’t mean that I’ll use this as an excuse to not try hard, but I also need to remember I am younger than them and do have a lot that I still need to learn. Maybe I can learn from their example and they can help me too?
Reflections on Intercultural Experiences in the U.S.
Since I came to Houston, I’ve had the chance to meet some local people. Not many, so it is not good to talk about American people here in general, but I am going to write what I felt in talking with the people I have met.
Last year, in Japan, some of my friends who were international students staying in Japan for a year told me that they felt like they were looked at with a prejudiced eye. One day, they were making jokes that they were sometimes called “Gaijin”, which means “foreigner”, but also contains a meaning like “outsider” or stranger. Compared to that, here in Houston, I don’t feel that I am judged by being Japanese or Asian. I think it comes from one of the American core values: to level the playing field/equality. In the hotel, the staff and shuttle drivers were nice and said hello while looking me directly in the eye. Drivers were so open that they kept talking to us while driving us to the university. I don’t think this would happen in Japan. I found it amazing to talk with someone I’ve never met and may never see again, so today, when I was waiting for an elevator at the hotel, I talked to an old woman; “Are you staying here?”, then she told me about her background and asked me what I was doing here. It was just five minutes but I loved that conversation and hearing her saying “Good luck on your research” when I got off the elevator. I want to try to talk to many people while staying here.
In my lab, I have also been struggling with my ‘Japaneseness’, particularly my value of wanting/seeking understanding. I thought it was rude to ask questions if I didn’t fully understand it first, but here, it is actually rude not to ask questions. At first, I didn’t understand most of what my mentor was talking about, but I kept listening thinking that I could just take notes about the words I should look at and I could try to understand later. However, in that way, I was wasting the rest of my time in the lab. Since I didn’t understand basic part, it was almost impossible to understand the other parts. As I began to understand that it was actually rude not to ask questions, I decided to ask every question that came to mind. I have been asking so many questions since then, but my mentor looked far from irritated, even looked happy. Therefore, I will keep trying to understand as much as possible by asking questions.
On Saturday, Ogawa-an took some of us great places. I attached some pictures from this weekend.
Research Internship Update
Prior to my arrival here at Houston, I couldn’t find time to read papers, so I started to read them on my second day in Houston. They helped me a lot in understanding what my lab is working on, but I also think that it might have been better to ask what exactly my project would be and if there was something I could prepare for it. Since I didn’t do that, I had to spend almost all of my free time after I came back to the hotel studying to understand what I would be doing for my research project.
Although I think the first day in the lab was hard for me, I really enjoyed it. The hardest thing in the lab was that I couldn’t understand scientific words in English. Even the English vocabulary from each lecture during the first week was sometimes difficult for me to understand because it was much faster than the English I used to but, in the lab, the English problem was more serious. I didn’t know many of words which my mentor was talking about, which meant it was also difficult to pronounce those words, so it was hard to point out words I couldn’t catch. I had to ask my mentor to repeat sentences which included words I couldn’t catch and asked my mentor to write down sentences when I needed. This was helpful, especially to understand my project and what I am going to be doing with it.
It took a week for me to understand what I will be working toward in the next five weeks. I was asking a lot of questions to my mentor, who is a 3rd year undergraduate, and every time I asked a question, she was so understanding of my need for detailed explanations again and again. Her attitude towards me and her knowledge of the subject made me think that she is always there to help me, which motivated me a lot while in a lab.
I am working under Professor Bonnie Bartel, who is working in the Department of Biosciences at Rice University Basically, I am studying a protein called peroxisome and some factors about its structure. In the first week, I did genotyping by polymerase chain reaction (PCR), which I already knew about but had never actually tried. During the first week, I felt so busy because I was always feeling something; excited, sad, motivated or disappointed. Learning new things is always fun, especially when it is not only on paper.
So far, I am working with my mentor and learning how each experiment is conducted by following what she did last year. She was doing two projects at the same time, so right now, we are also doing two projects. It is really difficult to understand which experience is conducted for which project, so I’ve decided to write down what I have done so far and have my mentor check it, so that I can make sure what I am understanding is right. My professor also wants me to write a weekly report, so I can also ask her if what I am understanding is right or not.
Week 02: First Week in My Research Lab at Rice
Little by little, I have gotten used to living here and I feel like I’m becoming more active than I was in the first week. On Tuesday, I visited the farmers market, which is hold every Tuesday at Rice University with Mariko and Chiaki, my roommates. There were not many shops and I only bought a carton of eggs, but it was fun to look around. After that, we walked back to the hotel and had the dinner together, shabushabu, which we had been excited since we bought ingredients at a supermarket. It was my first Japanese meal since I came here, so I really enjoyed it.
On Saturday, all Japanese fellows went to NASA’s Johnson Space Center. First, we joined a tour, where we could see some training institution. It was difficult for me to understand everything the tour guide explained, but still it was enjoyable. One of the amazing things that happened on that day was that we got opportunity to look at the Saturn V, or Apollo 4, which is a rocket that was actually used during 1967-1973. It was so huge that it took a while to walk around it. I felt a little strange and overwhelmed to think that I was actually standing by what had actually been in space. That feeling also came to my mind when I touched a rock which had been brought to Earth by the Apollo 17 crew who visited the moon in December 1972. I can say it was one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. I actually touched what was in a space! I might have to admit that I am a little obsessed about moon. It is not like I know a lot about moon, but I love looking at the moon, and every time I found something which use the moon as a motif, I have hard to stop myself from buying it. I think it is because I love my name, which means “shining moon”. At the theater, I saw an image recorded on the moon, where the earth is rising from horizon. I found it really beautiful and felt that also about space. After that, I found a postcard with a picture of that scene at the souvenir shop and bought it. I will put it on a wall in my room. This will be another addition to my collection on this wall, where I put cards from many other countries.
On Sunday, I went to shopping with Hiroko, who participated in another research program at Rice last spring and returned to her lab at Rice to do research again this summer. We had lunch at a Mexican restaurant, and then went to a vintage clothing shop, where we could buy cute stuff inexpensively. I really like to visit vintage shops in Japan, so it was so much fun to visit one in the U.S., where I could buy clothes much cheaper than in Japan and we stayed there for almost two hours. We also visited a souvenir shop and a café. It is always fun to go shopping and have conversations with someone at a cozy café. This weekend, I am going to San Antonio with Mari, and Chiaki, and I am really excited to think about it.
Research Project Update
My second week in the lab has passed quite quickly. Since I knew almost nothing about experiments in this field, I am always working with my mentor, learning how to conduct each experiment. However, since the school year has started this week and she has some classes to attend, I conducted some experiments by myself which were similar to the ones I had already done with my mentor. While she was in the lab, she explained me how to do other types of experiments and I asked her a lot of questions. Since we were doing some experiments at the same time, I often got confused and didn’t get what I am doing this experience for. Every time a question came up into my mind, I asked my mentor to explain more about it, but still, I didn’t think that I understood completely. So, to make sure that I understood well, I decided to write down every step I made conducting each experiment including the purpose of each of them. It was really difficult and took a lot of time, which made me a little sad because I found out how little I understood in the lab. I thought I understood when I was listening to my mentor explaining to me, but when I tried to explain steps by myself, I realized that I didn’t. There was even an experiment which I couldn’t explain why I did it at all, which I also thought I understood in the lab. After writing as much as I could by myself, I showed it to my mentor and asked her to check it. By doing that, I found out that I misunderstood some parts. For example, I didn’t get the reason why I also used wild type not only mutant one in an experiment.
I think this was a good strategy, because now, I know that what I understand is correct. Knowing what I know and what I am unsure about is important, and letting my mentor know how far I am understanding is also important. When I couldn’t understand even with her detailed explanation, she showed me some graphs, charts, pictures or whatever which she thought would help me to understand. She also gave me time to look up some English scientific words in Japanese during her explanation, which helped me a lot because there are many words that I don’t know in English but in Japanese, or which have same name in both language but pronunciations are quite different, therefore I didn’t understand at all as long as I am just listening to my mentor talking.
I can’t believe it has been two weeks already since I started studying in the lab, but what’s more, I can’t believe I only have three weeks to go in the lab, by which time we all should be ready for the final presentation. I am not stressed out, but a little nervous to think how much I still have to learn until then. However, at the same time, I am really excited to think about how new things I will encounter in the next three weeks. Since this is my first experience in a lab, I am experiencing new things every single day throughout the past two weeks. I will try to learn more, and enjoy a lot.
Week 03: Interview with a U.S. Student and Researcher
For this assignment, I interviewed Prof. Kyung-Hee Bae, Director, Center for Academic and Professional Communication (CAPC) and Lecturer, Program in Writing and Communication. I wanted to interview her because I was interested in her career, which has a linguistics background and also chemistry one. She is from Korea, and as an undergraduate got a degree in chemistry. After that, she moved to Georgia with her husband to pursue a Ph.D. in chemistry. After a while, she got pregnant and left academia for a time to take care of her child and herself. During the time she was not working in academia, she realized that a career in chemistry was not the life she wanted. She missed the life where she can keep trying something new. Afterwards, she chose to go into a different field, linguistics, which her husband helped to realize her love for. She had no knowledge of undergraduate coursework in linguistics, so she had to take many classes to gain a basic understanding of the field. She told me that she had a hard time, but she loved what she was doing.
Basically, I asked her two questions: what made her to change her major from chemistry to linguistics and what she thought about the difference between the style of studies in each field. There were some reasons why she left chemistry, but she said she still loves chemistry and sometimes thinks about what could have happened if she continued her studies there. The part she didn’t like about chemistry was the time; she had to be at the lab during the whole experiment not to miss any reactions. On the other hand, right now, she can work whenever and wherever she wants to. However, she loved to see the reactions which amazed her a lot, and to try to prove the hypothesis she had. She has missed these things since she leaving the field.
To be honest, I, myself, am not sure if I want to continue what I am doing. I am in the Faculty of Agriculture, which has many branches: animals, plants, sea-animals, forests, or resource and environment economics. While doing my research internship here, I started to think that I may prefer studying things at the macro level, which could be within the field of resource and environmental economics. Actually I was interested in this a few years ago, and have been thinking about changing my major for a while. This was one of the reasons why I chose to join this program; because I wanted to know if I really want to do study in a scientific field in the lab. I still haven’t gotten an answer yet, but this interview helped me a lot to find an answers by giving me some perspectives I should focus on while deciding what I really want to do now. To some extent, it is good to be optimistic. I should not worry too much about my future. I never know how what I am doing will impact my future.
Also, I interviewed Fumiya Katsutani, who is a Japanese graduate student doing a Ph.D. at at Rice University in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering. At the panel discussion, where I met some Japanese students who are doing Ph.D. at Rice, I felt that most of those who are studying here are planning to or hoping to settle in the U.S. That one of the biggest reasons why they are studying here is to get a job here. I personally was curious to know more about what the motivation was for those who are planning to go back to Japan to after getting a Ph.D. in the U.S. Fumiya told me that he had been thinking of going back to Japan, so I wanted to know about his thoughts were on this.
He finished his master’s degree at Osaka university in Japan before he came here for Ph.D. When he was planning to go back to Japan, he was thinking about getting a position in academia. However, through working in a lab, he thought he may prefer getting a position in industry because he found his passion in making things, and since non-American residents can get work authorization in the U.S. for two years after completing Ph.D. through the STEM OPT program, and the salary here is much higher than in Japan, he decided to apply for jobs in the U.S., and will see what will happen. I asked some questions: what do you want to do after that two years? When are you planning to go back to Japan? To those questions, he answered that he didn’t know. He can’t say anything because he hasn’t started working yet. When I heard that, I remembered the thought which also came to my mind during the interview with Prof. Kyung-Hee Bae: I can do what I want to do or think is good for me for now, and then can think about my future when I actually get to the next step.
Listening to the stories of those who have abundant experience is always exciting. I personally often do this and will keep doing this, but one thing I have to keep in my mind that I shouldn’t decide my future based on their stories. I know I am really impressionable, so I should not forget that.
Research Project Update
Throughout this last week, I had to re-do some experiments. Early last week, I did there Gibson Assembly with PEX2, PEX10, PEX12 and the vector containing the fluorescent reporter line and then transformed cells with the DNA. The next day, I showed up the lab to find that there was no colony on the plate, which should have been there after Gibson Assembly. Therefore, I had to restart from doing PCR with PEX2, PEX10 and PEX12, which is a former step of Gibson Assembly. Also, I genotyped some pex10-2, which I couldn’t last week because they were too small to use.What I learned from these experiences is that biological experiments never go as planned. Once I fail, I have to redo all the steps that I followed, and some of steps take a long time and I have to wait for the time when a plant itself will be ready for an experiment.
Therefore, I found it difficult to schedule a biological experiment, which right now my mentor does for me. She told me that sometimes she has to come over to the lab just to put a plate out of a fridge. I thought it is somehow annoying, but at the same, it could be an exciting part of biological experiment to conduct an experiment along with the growth of a plant. During the three weeks I have spent the lab, I often am amazed to see how wonderful a small tiny gene performs. I get excited thinking of the power of a gene, cell, plants, or ecosystem which I don’t know yet or even have never thought of before. Those thoughts reminded me of why I first became interested in plants.
I can’t believe I only have two weeks left in Houston. I feel like I haven’t accomplished anything yet, and what I have done was just a collection of single points. I will try to try to connect those points to each other, by understanding more about my project as a whole.
Week 04: Reflections on English Language & Life in the U.S.
I am still struggling every day when speaking in English. I feel like my brain hasn’t become accustomed to English yet. Since I came to the U.S, I have gotten tired really easily every day, which I think is because of always speaking in English. Since I speak in English in my lab and speak Japanese with other Japanese fellows, it is difficult to switch the languages in my brain.
When I was in Canada two yeas ago doing a study abroad program, it was during the third month that I first started to dream at night in English, and then kept dreaming in English until the end of the stay there. I remember that I was really happy when I woke up to find it. However, this time in the U.S, I experienced it once last week, but not since then anymore. I am afraid that my English is not getting better, or even worse, getting worse.
I thought I had gotten used to speaking English last year, but I realized that most of those I talked in English were international students, who also spoke English as a second language. I found Americans, who are native English speakers, tend to speak faster than what I am used to. Because of that, it is still difficult for me to catch up on conversations conducted by local people here. So, what I am trying to do is, to use English words or idioms which local students often use but I have never heard before. In that way, I can somehow understand the tempo of the spoken English here. I am not sure if this will work because I am still on the way, but I hope it will.
Now I am writing this in San Antonio, which I where I chose to spend three-day long weekend for the Labor Day holiday. It is extremely hot here, and everyone can tell it from my feet which now have tanned and white stripes from walking around in sandals without putting sunscreen on them. San Antonio is a historical city and there are many historical monuments: the Alamo and San Antonio Missions National Historical Park, which I could learn a lot from. I was overwhelmed walking around these places, imagining the battles that actually happened exactly where I was standing.
Other than those historical phases, this city is also famous for its Riverwalk, which I came to love the most. There were many restaurants, cafes, and stalls, which were selling hand-made goods. I enjoyed looking at them, but just walking along the river itself was great. It was not as humid as in Japan, so it was not hot as long as I stayed in shade along the river and I loved the atmosphere there.
Research Project Update
This week, I had to redo some experiments which I failed last week. The Gibson Assembly didn’t work, and I and my mentor assumed that it was because we didn’t have enough DNA, but we will never know the exact reason, because there is a possibility that I might have forgotten to add something to the master mix. One more thing that didn’t work was PCR with PEX12. After running PCR products on a gel, I found that the bands we got were showing that the lengths of them were the same with ones of a mutant. I have no idea why that happened. Actually, my PEX12 didn’t work not only this time, but also last time. Regarding the mistake which I made last time, Zach advised me to add DMSO to the master mix, which helped a vector work more effectively. However, what happened is that the result we got from 2nd experiment was showing the result which is more likely to be wrong than the first mistake. Again, about this case too, we will never know the reason why it didn’t work. The most possible reason could be that I forgot to add something, but there is no way to check it.
What I learned from this experience is that how important it is to make sure that I don’t make any mistake when conducting an experiment. The reason it did not work could be that the portion off chemicals, temperature or another condition, which I could change to another one and try again. Even if it doesn’t work, I can still say that I am making a progress by knowing that that certain temperature or portion of chemicals don’t work.
The most challenging thing I did this week is to design my poster. This is my first time ever to make a scientific poster, and though we all had a lecture about how to make one a few weeks ago, it was really hard for me. One of the reasons for this difficulty could be that I won’t have a “result” because some experiment didn’t work and therefore there is not enough time for me to finish the experiments, regarding the time of plants growth, incubation, reactions. I wrote about this last week to, but I found it really difficult to conduct biological experiment as scheduled.
I think I will work on a poster mostly next week, but at the same time, I want to re-do the experiment that did not work, the Gibson Assembly.
Week 05: Final Week at Rice Research in the U.S. vs. Research in Japan
Three days have passed since and I still cannot believe it, but my five weeks of research at Rice University has ended with the final poster session. During my last week in the lab, I was mostly working on my poster. While doing that, a lot of questions came to my mind, so I was trying to make sure that I understood my project and results correctly by reflecting what I did and asking questions to my mentor. Thinking about the poster session was sometimes frustrating, and I often thought that I just waned to run away and dive into my bed in my house, especially right before the poster session. I think one of the reasons for that is because I didn’t have a “result”. Biological experiments takes a long time and it is unusual to be able to finish a project in just five weeks. I know this now, but I did not before. Everyone from the Nakatani RIES seemed to have some results, regardless if they were what they expected or not, except for me. It took a certain amount of time for me to understand this and not be disappointed by this fact.
Through the five weeks in my lab, I often tried to listen to my heart to find out what I really want to do in my future. Since this was my first lab experience, this gave me an opportunity to think about my future studies, and this was one of the purposes for why I decided to apply to this program. For now, I don’t think I want to apply for graduate school abroad as it is difficult for me to picture myself studying in a university in the U.S. To be more specific, I don’t think I am have enough depth in my field of study and am passionate enough about it to want to pursue a five-to-six year Ph.D. in the U.S.
When will the time come when I make decision of what, when, and how I want to study during the rest of my university life? This question often came to my mind especially when I realized how little I know about my field by listening to my friends, mostly older than me and who have more experiences, so they know a lot more about their fields. I am really susceptible and tend to see all the possibilities I have, and I changed my mind a lot during my stay here; I still haven’t decided yet what I am going to do after I go back to Japan. I am considering of changing my major, and if I am really doing that, I have to work on it from next semester. However, SO WHAT? This is one of the things I learned during my stay here. I met so many people and learned about their career paths, and realized that it is never be too late to try or do something. What I decide to study in my university for just a few years is not necessarily what I will do in my life in the future. Life is interesting because we never know what we will meet in the future. I will not stop seeing all of my possibilities and looking for those that will make me happy. I believe I can do it someday, though I have no idea when it will be.
Research in Japan vs. Research in the U.S.
Since I didn’t have any experience in a lab before my stay here, it is difficult for me to compare a lab in Japan and one in the U.S. However, I was surprised to hear the Bartel lab members call their professor by her first name and thought that this would never happen in Japan. Also, since they don’t use honorifics like “san” or “senpai” when speaking to their mentors and tend not to care about their age, I found that people in the lab were all equal.
I think the lab I was in was relatively big, and people there looked like they were having fun together. I loved to work there, but at the same time, I was struggling every day with talking with them. Since there were always some people in the lab, they were often talking with each other and I couldn’t always understand what they were talking about. It could be because I didn’t know many words in their conversation, especially the scientific terms and names of the things from the U.S. that I had never heard of. However, the reason I couldn’t catch up with their conversation was mostly because of how fast they talked. I am still not comfortable talking with a lot of people at the same time in English, which I think quite different from talking with just one person. Therefore, I was afraid of talking to someone in the lab, fearing that I would not able to understand them or vice versa. As a child, I used to worry too much about what people think about me. I thought I had overcome that, but again, this feeling came back to my mind and made me hesitate to talk to people in the lab. Now that I have left the lab and look back my days at Rice, I regret this, and wish I could have talked to them more. I am kind of a person who needs to be confident to do anything, so I really want to improve my English so that I can push myself to talk in English in group settings.
Research Project Overview and Poster
Until I started talking to the audience at the poster session, I didn’t really believe what Sarah said: We would enjoy the poster session, and it is going to be fun. But it turned out that I was wrong, it was fun! The 90 minutes I spent in the hall talking about my project made me nervous and very tired but I have to say that it was one of the most exciting and amazing moments in my life. People were there because they wanted to know about what I did. By thinking in that way, I gained confidence and stopped hesitating to speak up and tried to tell the visitors to my poster everything I knew. I felt that this was the time I was speaking the most fluently in English during my stay in the U.S, and I realized that confidence is really important to speak in English.
Host Professor:Prof. Bonnie Bartel, Dept. of Biosciences
Mentors: Sarah Bradford and Zachary Wright
During my five weeks in Houston, I studied under Professor Bonnie Bartel in the Department of Bioscience. I was working with my mentor, Sarah E Bradford, who is 20, and a sophomore. When we needed help, we asked Zachary J Wright, a graduate student, for help, who was her mentor. It was funny that Sarah described us as family; Zach as a grandfather, Sarah as a mother, and me as a daughter.
My research project focused on “Investigating the Role of RING Peroxins in Establishing Peroxisome Membrane Structure”. My project was about organelles, called peroxisomes. They are important because most of all eukaryotes have them and they perform essential metabolic functions in a plant’s body. The point of our study is the structure of a peroxisome. It had been thought that peroxisomes have a single membrane structure, but recent study showed that they have inner membranes in each of them. Throughout all the projects in the lab, they want to discover what makes that structure.
In order to understand that better, I focused on RING peroxins. It is a name for three peroxins, PEX2, PEX10 and PEX12. PEX stands for peroxin, which is a protein responsible for peroxisome biogenesis and function. PEX 5 carries matrix protein into matrix through a membrane and leave then there, then exit through membrane. When they exit, RING peroxins work to recycle to PEX 5, so that this cycle can be repeated. We are not sure exactly how they work, but assume that they have important roles in establishing inner membranes.
I conducted two experiments to know the role of RING peroxins. In the first one, I tried to see that RING peroxins are needed to make inner membranes. We crossed each of pex2-1, pex10-2 and pex12-1, mutant Arabidopsis which doesn’t have a function which PEX2, PEX10 and PEX12 should have, and Arabidopsis with reporter line, which can tell where membrane and matrix are by color under a confocal microscopy. If we see inner membranes in the plants we got from the crossing, we can say that RING peroxins are needed to make inner membranes.
In the second one, I tried to see where they are localized by fusing each of PEX2, PEX10 and PEx12 to markers. In addition to the reporters I used in the first experiment, I also used a blue tag, which can indicate where RING peroxins are. Under a confocal microscopy, where a blue tag is where RING peroxins are. We wanted to know that if they are localized only in inner membranes, outer membranes or both.
Unfortunately, since I had only five weeks there and because biological experiments take a long time, I could not finish my project. In the first experiment, I sterilized seeds, grew them on plates and genotyped them by PCR and gel running. In the second one, I sterilized seeds and tried Gibson Assembly, which I failed. Therefore, my future plan will be to finish isolating homozygous RING peroxin mutants expressing di-fluorescent reporter line, complete cloning of tri-fluorescent reporter line and transform plants, and observe the results of both using confocal microscopy. Also, I can investigate other parts of the PEX4 and PEX22, which we also think could have important roles in making inner membranes.
Though I couldn’t get detailed results, it was amazing experience that I actually saw the reactions that before I had only read about in papers.
Week 06: Last Week in the U.S.
After leaving Houston, we went to Philadelphia and I met one of my friends who lives there. I first met him at my university in Japan, and I want to mention that I am here in this program thanks to him. When I was working on my essays to apply for this program back in Japan, he helped me a lot. When I got the result from Nakatani Foundation that I was selected he was already back in the U.S. and I let him know about the news via LINE, so I really wanted to meet him in person and say thank you.
He showed me around the city on Saturday night and on Sunday. We talked a lot about our memories and our friends in Japan and had so much fun together. These two days made both of us think how amazing it is to have friends all over the world, an also how sad it is. It was really sad to say “good-bye” the next day I said “Long time no see”. He told me that by having beloved friends all over the world, it’s difficult to feel “home” no matter where he is. Always, parts of our heart are not where we actually are. However, meeting new people is always fun and learning from them always helps us grow. When I go back to Japan, I will meet new, incoming international students at my university and am really looking forward to this, though I know that there will always come the time to say good bye to them.
Thinking about this, I realized that I can say the same thing with my Japanese friends. We don’t know where we will be in a few years. According to the Strength Finders assessment we did at Lehigh University, “I live in the moment”. I think this describes me well. For me, the important thing is that I am having fun right now. Also, I am excited to think about what will happen next. Even though we might not be able to see each other as easily in future, we somehow make each other what we will be in future. Saying good bye is always hard, so instead, I always say a sentence which I found beautiful: See you somewhere in the world.
I spent my last week in Bethlehem and Washington DC. I didn’t have any time to explore Bethlehem, but did have time to explore in Washington DC. As people kept telling me, DC was a really cool city. They have nature, historical buildings, shops and restaurants all in the city!! I think this also applies to Philadelphia, but not so many cities in Japan.
Our first evening in DC, I was walking along side of a river with Mariko and Chiaki. It was really beautiful as the sun was setting. Looking at it, I remembered what my friend in Philadelphia said about looking at sunset at an observatory a few days ago: “While we’re seeing this, people in Japan are seeing the sun rising.” What he said made me had some feelings which I can’t describe in words well, a feeling which comes from both happiness and loneliness. Maybe I am too sentimental when I’m away from Japan. I also liked walking there in moonlight and the lights coming from buildings over the river. The view reminded me of a picture book I often read in my childhood, おつきさまって どんなあじ？
On our second day in DC, I went to the United States Botanical Gardens during my free time. There were so many plants, trees, and flowers that I had never seen before. I got excited to think that there are a lot of things I don’t know about them and might get to know through my studies from now on. Thinking about this, I thought that I really love being surround by nature. This would be one of the things which will encourage me to study more about nature. In the evening, I worked on my weekly report in a café. I had a mint coffee, which I found really tasty. One of the best things to do abroad is to try things I wouldn’t see in Japan!! I think I’ll miss this when I go back to Japan.
One of the things I like to do in the U.S. is to go to book stores. There are many cute and unique books, and I love buying books to give as gifts there. I found that people in the U.S. are more open and don’t hesitate to show their true feelings compared to people in Japan and this also appears in books too. This could be one of the reasons why I like the books I have found here. I was explored book stores my entire second evening in DC and had so much fun.
On the last day in DC, also our last day in the U.S, I visited vintage clothing shops during our free afternoons. This was one of the things I wanted to do there, because it is much cheaper to buy vintage clothes in the U.S. than in Japan. I spent about four hours walking from shop to shop exploring and ended up with buying $20 high heels and an $8 shirt; but it was really fun just looking at a lot of cute clothes and walking through the in cute towns.
After that, I joined the night bus tour of DC, which took us to historical places around the city with Yuki, Gen, Katsuya, Ryotaro, Shuhei and Mariko. The city looked completely different from them in daylight. The best part of the bus is that we could sit on the roof top and feel the night air. We do have beautiful temples and shrines in Japan, but what I saw on the tour had a completely different type of beauty and magnificence, and amazed me a lot. The history in the U.S. might shorter than in Japan, but what found was this country is full of stories and came long way to come together as one country. This is how I ended my last night.
And now, I am writing this on a plane, about 1 hour away from Japan. I learned a lot from not only the research and lectures, but also from just living in the U.S and explore many cities. This is the country I have wanted to come to for a long time, and now I love this country. I am not sure if I will come back for any reason yet, but I would say “bye for now”, and “thank you so much for treating us well”.
Final Report
My last week in the U.S passed so quickly and everyone, including me, kept saying “I can’t believe that it’s almost over!” I guess I learned and thought about my future much, much more than I could handle in six weeks. What I experienced during this short summer is really precious.
I used to tend to do everything by myself until I learned how to rely on others when I was 16. In Canada, where I had no one to talk to in Japanese, I had no choice but to ask for help for almost everything I did. I am pretty sure that until then I didn’t realize how much I was helped by my family and friends, and I was a little ashamed to ask for help, which I thought meant I was not strong enough. Even after I came back Japan, I had many troubles because of being gone from high-school in Japan for four months and this is when I realized how small I am. But, I felt happiness to realizing that I always had, have, and will have people around me to help me.
I had a similar feeling during this in stay in the U.S. I was amazed by how many people, who didn’t know us, were working for us trying to give us good experiences. How many people I met? How many people I talked to? How many people thought about our future with us? I am pretty sure that I have never seen so many people in this short a period of time. I learned that I have people who will be willing to help me out if I can show them I want to try something and work hard towards it. This made me excited because I felt that there are many more possibilities in front of me with those people.
There is another thing which made me excited about my career: the diversity of careers of the people I met. The careers that people are working in now are not necessarily what they studied during their college life. There are not exactly in the same field, but they are applying and using what they learned for what they are doing right now. Life is unpredictable. By realizing this, I found out that I was worrying too much about what I should do now. I need to care about it, but I should know that it’s impossible to decide if what I am doing now is right for me or not, because I haven’t gone deep enough into it to judge. Maybe this is bot the exact same path I will take, but there should be ways to use that somewhere in my future. I was a little jealous of other the other Japanese Fellows who already know what they want to study and pursue. I was still thinking in that way, but now have decided to think like this; I have so many possibilities and it is going to be so fun to pick one by experiencing many things.
Even though I learned and thought about my future a lot, what I have decided was only one thing: I will not rush. I will not dislike myself for being slow. I am still 19!!
I hope my experience will help me a lot in my future, and also the people around me. Here, I want to say thank you to everyone who helped me in applying to this program, working in the U.S, and struggling in thinking about my future. I am here, ending this program thanks to everyone who have helped me. Thank you.
Tips for Future Participants
Since I had a wonderful experience through this program, I am already happy for future Nakatani students because they will have wonderful experiences for sure and will be able to use what they learn for what they want to do in the future. If I were give some advice to them, I would say “don’t be afraid to talk to people around you.” The people around you will be those who hope to help you out during your stay in the U.S. It is much worse if you do not talk to people than being afraid of making a mistake and asking for help. This is one of the things I wish I had done, so I really want to tell this to future students.
One more thing I want to tell future participants is that don’t just think about how what you do in the U.S. could be useful for what you hope to do in Japan. It is important to link these two, but I think first, they have to enjoy and commit to what they are doing in the U.S.; no matter if it has something to do with what they do in Japan or not.
