Message from NIG-INTERN 2009

Message

3rd Summer Research Program for Undergraduates, NIGINTERN 2009, was carried out from May to July.
Seven selected participants enjoyed 10 week research internship programs at their host laboratories.

Surojit Sural
From:IISER Pune, India
Stayed at:Kobayashi Lab
“Are you a vegetarian ?” this was the first question my mentor asked me when I landed at NIG. Though food is a major problem in Japan for students from vegetarian-dominated countries like India, I can declare with certainty that but for this, Japan is a heaven for students interested in reaping the benefits of world-class scientific research.
My host laboratory in NIG was Cytogenetics Lab which uses yeast as a model organism (both S. cerevisiae and S. pombe). I will frankly admit that before joining this lab, I didn’t have much respect for lower eukaryotes as objects to be used in scientific research. This stereotypical view of mine was completely revolutionized when I saw the level of research in the lab. My mentor, Prof. Takehiko Kobayashi, addresses such crucial aspects of rRNA coding genes (rDNA) in S. cerevisiae that they are capable of exciting any person who is even barely interested in life sciences. Finally I came to the conclusion that the most important aspect of research is one’s approach towards a problem and not just a high-tech gadget which one uses.
Both my projects, one under Prof. Kobayashi himself , and another under Asst. Prof. Tetsushi Iida, were so close to my research interests that I can apply almost everything I learnt here in the scientific activities I’ll undertake in future. One thing in NIG which highly fascinated me was the fruitfulness of discussion after the seminars. It was really great to see the interest people show in each other’s work which nourishes and fine-tunes every research activity in the institute. By now the reader might feel that I did nothing other than science in the duration of my internship; but I’ll make it clear that I visited almost every must-visit place in Japan.
For a student, NIG is a place to ponder, prosper and discover. In 10 weeks, the institute has given me so much that I’ll surely like to come back to NIG for my research endeavour.
Swati Gupta
From:University of Delhi, India
Stayed at:Hiromi Lab
After experiencing the peak of enjoyment, it’s really difficult to express them in words.
I bliss out by having such nice co-interns and satisfaction of having the two exquisite professors (Yasushi Hiromi sensei and Emiko Suzuki sensei) made my experience memorable.
The motivation and support of my lab mates delighted my stay in Japan, and our weekend trips filled the exhilaration in this internship. Asaoka Sensei , my mentor is like the sun rays in the dark. Her smiling face with her son Kanata chan always pushed me on the higher energy level, which leads me to work more enthusiastically during days and nights. Mother like Love and care from Suzuki san (my lab mate) never made me to feel nostalgic.
Working with Drosophila is always a harmonious job for me. Along with this, being a Zoologist, larvae dissection experiments added more challenge in my internship. Also handling the Electron microscope and working with germ cells is like dream come true.
The Kakegawa conference (JDRC’09) and the Kyoto trip are the unforgettable trips of my life. Kingdom of Oraichale, Hakone trips on cycle added passion inside me for more cycling, also helped in weight loss (a bonus for me). The Japanese lesson classes with Miyauchi sensei were of complete fun for me and her energy level made me to learn the language more eagerly.
Common cooking sessions in the weekends mixed the spices in guest house ambience and the celebrations of Bukka san, Surojit san, Madhura san and Nelson san’s B’day with halwa? cake made their B’day more special.
After enjoying so many parties both at “Guest House” and in “lab” finally the time to say Sayonara has come.
Miss you NIG and my NIG intern gang.
Rahul Singh
From:IIT Kanpur, India
Stayed at:Kimura Lab
As I write this, the first thing that comes to my mind is that, I got much more from my internship than what I could have ever imagined. Besides the invaluable research experience that I acquired, there were events and people, who made those ten weeks one of the most memorable time of my life.
Beginning with the lab first, I joined Cell Architecture Lab with Dr. Akatsuki Kimura as my guide. I consider myself highly fortunate to have joined this relatively young lab, which was so full of zeal and enthusiasm. I actually cannot think of any quality of an excellent PI, which was not present in Dr.Kimura, and the impact clearly reflected in other lab members too. I worked on three projects, which provided me the broadest spectrum of working experience. The first project was purely experimental, third was purely computational, while second project had both experimental and computational components in it. Due to my educational background, the field was relatively new to me, but the way the things were explained to me by my respective project mentors, made the path of learning very comfortable. I was always free to pursue my independent thoughts and ideas, and was in fact encouraged to do so. I feel very fortunate in this aspect, as I have observed that usually internship students, at most places, are in reality deprived of this contraption. In order to check my ideas from going stray, I always had the highly experienced and substantiating hands of Kenji san and Koyama san, post docs who mentored my first and second projects. All the other lab members were also extremely generous to help me innumerous times during my work, most of the times compromising with their own busy schedules. The lab implemented highly advanced and latest technologies, and with initial training I was free to work independently with them which bolstered my confidence in my research skills.
Apart from the projects, my weekend trips were also usually planned in the lab only. I am extremely thankful to Yoko san and Hanako san, who took so much interest in them, and guided me for where to go and how to go; be it rafting in Fujigawa river, climbing Mt.Fuji, or the cycle expeditions to mountains, lakes and sea beaches. As expected, these trips also contributed very significantly for making the stay so much more memorable. If somebody wants to extend his horizons of how good people can be, than Japan is a perfect place. And if this seems too much of generalization, then with not even a slightest doubt I can say that definitely Kimura lab is a perfect place. Every single person in the lab was so good, with the flag bearer being the inspiration for all. I consider myself very fortunate to have spent such good time with such good people.
During my stay at NIG, my lab arranged for trips to other leading universities of Japan, like Tokyo University and Kyoto University, which proved to be very enriching experiences. Also I attended Japanese classes that were of great help. In those ten weeks I got to live with the culture and tradition of Japan, which is so rich in its values. I tried my best to be a part of them, and will try to inculcate some of those values in my life. Besides everything else, I was accompanied by other interns, who made all this experience even more unforgettable. In them, I got friends for the life time and beautiful memories to cherish forever.
Madhura Raghavan
From:Anna University, India
Stayed at:Shimamoto Lab
What a summer it had been! Never had I been so richly treated to scientific as well as cultural exposure as this. I worked with Prof. Shimamoto on various aspects of the extracellular matrix (ECM) of E.coli. My professor had only recently figured out a method to observe the ECM (which so far had eluded scientists from observation owing to its transparent nature) and this meant its structure, composition and function could now be studied. The fact that he had confidence in me to assign this exciting new work was really encouraging. My work in the lab, amidst friendly and motivating lab members, was very rewarding and enjoyable. I worked on diverse aspects of the ECM, its role in cell survival, its effect on flagellar motion and the proteins of the ECM. Initially I began studying the proteins of ECM and then based on the results, started new experiments in parallel. I had to devise and standardize protocols first, which I then used, to conduct the experiments. In addition to learning new techniques, the wonderful part was that I was allowed to work on many aspects of the project independently. Having never had an opportunity to design experiments on my own, it was a great pleasure to work this way and it helped me develop the ability to think analytically and critically, which I realize, matters much in preparing oneself to be a good researcher. From being a naive undergrad, I have become a bit matured now. Very often I had interesting discussions with my professor and assistant professor, which alerted me to be really cautious about misleading and apparently real results. I was given an opportunity to give a talk at a conference on E.coli on the work that we were doing and it was an awesome experience. On the whole, the icing on the cake, however, is the invaluable lesson I learnt – never to be frustrated by failures. Enjoy your work and if it fails, put in more love, interest and of course more effort in the work. The joy of doing what you like surpasses the joy of success and this has multiplied my love for research manifold!!
As much as I loved my work, I loved traveling around in the bicycle that NIG had given us. Weekends meant cycling expeditions with other interns to nearby and also not so nearby places, finding the direction ourselves using the Japanese that we learnt in the weekly Japanese lessons at NIG. I met a lot of wonderful people during these trips-all of them so polite, honest, generous and ever helpful that, sometimes I felt overwhelmed. Right from climbing Fuji-san, to exploring Kyoto, to rafting in Fujigawa, to watching the biggest fireworks festival in Tokyo, to having joint cooking sessions with my friends – weekends were a perfect foil to the weekdays . NIGINTERN has been the most enriching and enlightening experience in my life. Thanks to NIG for giving me this opportunity to explore science and the Japanese culture so extensively at the same time.
Suandi Pratama
From:Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia
Stayed at:Niki Lab
To apply and join NIG internship program felt like a challenge for me to understand more about science. I’m coming from applied science field, then curiosity to explore what’s behind basic science driven me to use this opprtunity to experience the beauty of science that pepole usually described in text book.
Perform fundamental genetic experiment is the first time for me and the main reason why I chosen Niki’s Lab for my internship program. Here, people discissed critical questions that made me rethink about genetic expeiment in the ways I had never considered. The instructors were challenging and pushing me to think out of the box so I understand how to look at the science in different ways. They helped me to design a good experiment and show me how to perform a science experiment properly. They teached me several tools available in genetic field, inspired me the importance of genetics research and support my intention to continue about study science. The best impression for me during the experiemtent is to witness wild type and mutant yeast cells undergo mitotic division under the microscope and I just can’t described how beauthiful it was.
Beside of the experiment course, there were various activities such as weekly japanese lesson that was very interestion (Thanks to Miauchi-sensei ^^v ), seminar, and journal club. I joined Molecular Biology Class to know how NIG teacher describe science to the students as well as to apply and connect these knowledge to experiment that they conducted. I also attended seminar and poster presentation in NIG to see the latese achievements in science conducted in NIG.
Let me say It was an amazing 10-weeks. I learned a lot of about science and getting more interested to know more and deeper. I am happy to make friends with NIG members and all of the Indian interns. Finally I would like to say thanks for all of the kindness, warm advice and knowledge to all of the members of NIKI’s lab for helping me a lot during this program especially for NIKI-sensei, FURUYA-san, SHIOMI-san, AOKI-san, Niki’s lab members and also to NIG education supporting team. Hope we can meet again.
Bukka Harshvardhan
From:IIT Madras, India
Stayed at:Saga Lab
Situated in Mishima, a lush green and hill countryside of shizuoka prefecture, NIG offers a quiet, serene and refreshing environment which is very conducive to good research. My work concerned the role of Hesr1 and Hesr2 genes in mouse myocardium, a work which resulted in suggesting a novel role in cardiomyocytes, namely, proliferation. I realised the enormous amount of effort and patience needed to troubleshoot the problems and was lucky to have the able guidance of my Professor, Dr. Yumiko Saga, Assistant Professor, Dr. Hiroki Kokubo, and lab mate, Dr. Sakabe Masahide. Interaction and group discussion sessions with all lab mates proved helpful in getting new ideas.
I attained a good deal of knowledge about the field of Developmental Biology. My enthusiasm for research in Life sciences has increased many folds and I believe NIG has contributed a lot in this direction. The frequent lectures and symposia offered by various researchers from outside of NIG widened my knowledge base. I got a chance to attend the 42nd Annual Meeting of Japanese Society of Developmental Biologists which introduced me to the immense scope of research in this field. I also got the opportunity to visit 2 eminent professors in Kyoto University, namely Dr. Yuji Hiraki and Dr. Norio Nakatsuji, both of whom are well known for their research.
The weekend trips around Mishima were great fun, especially because they were filled with so many adventures. There is no dearth of enthusiasm for extra activities in NIG students, as I found in my and my co-interns’ lab mates. It is also heartening to see that NIG is working to improve the English communication skills of its students , which helped the intern students effectively communicate with people in other labs too.
I would like to conclude with sincere thanks to my Professor, Assistant Professor, Lab mates, NIGINTERN committee, NIG education support team and my co-interns for making my stay a knowledgeable and memorable experience.
Nelson Vadassery
From:IIT Madras, India
Stayed at:Araki Lab
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