[No. 217] Koji Abe

Thank you for this opportunity to write for the Keio University alumni column. I graduated from the Department of Applied Chemistry in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University and completed my master's degree. I currently work as a research scientist in the United States. In this article, I would like to reflect on how my studies at Keio have influenced my subsequent career path. Since this column is primarily aimed at prospective students, I would like to write frankly about my feelings at the time regarding my life at Keio and later at the University of Washington in Seattle, where I studied abroad.

I was admitted through a designated school recommendation from Tokyo Metropolitan Tachikawa High School. I had vaguely decided to pursue a field related to chemistry or biology, but I hadn't settled on a specific department. While other universities were also options, the deciding factor was Keio's "Gakumon" system, which allows students to choose their department after admission. Therefore, I chose the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio.

During the three years before joining a laboratory, I felt I had accomplished nothing and was anxious that my time would be wasted if I graduated as I was. Before my fourth year, I considered which laboratory to join through a process of elimination, which left me with only two candidates. When I visited one of them, the Laboratory for Analytical Chemistry (formerly the Suzuki Koji Lab, now the Daniel Citterio Lab), a senior student welcomed me very politely and gave me heartfelt advice about life in the lab. I immediately decided to join.

In the lab, I was primarily supervised by Daniel. At the time, I was given a research theme that was new to the lab, but thanks to Daniel's foresight, I was fortunate enough to publish two papers in international journals. Based on those results, I also had the opportunity to give a poster presentation at a conference in Canada.

I continued on to the master's program, but I felt too comfortable in the lab. I thought that continuing on to the Doctoral Programs might not lead to significant growth, so I chose research and development at a company as my next step. However, I vividly remember graduating while thinking about how to build on my experience working with Daniel, rather than just considering it a "stroke of luck."

After graduation, I was involved in the development of balloon catheters for cardiovascular treatment at Terumo Corporation. Even after graduation, Daniel treated me like a friend, and during a summer vacation shortly after I started my job, we traveled together to his home country, Switzerland. At that time, a senior from the Suzuki Lab was a postdoc at ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich) in Switzerland. I had the chance to talk with him about life abroad, and he recommended that I pursue a PhD overseas.

During my third year of university, I went on a study trip to the University of Cambridge in the UK. When I heard how hard the brilliant local students were studying, I felt that getting a degree abroad was absolutely impossible for me. Therefore, until my senior recommended it, I had never considered going abroad. However, his explanation inspired me, and after returning to Japan, I started researching information related to studying abroad and began my preparations. Since I was working, I used my early mornings, evenings after work, and weekends to prepare. Ultimately, I was accepted into the Doctoral Programs in the Department of Bioengineering at the University of Washington in Seattle (hereafter UW), but Professor Suzuki and Daniel were incredibly helpful with my interviews, essays, and scholarship applications.

At the time, there were two prominent professors in the United States in my research field from Keio. One of them was at UW, so I visited before enrolling and pleaded with him to let me join his lab. In my department, it was common for students to rotate through different labs they were interested in for a semester at a time during the first two or three semesters before deciding on a permanent lab. However, since there were no other labs I wanted to join, I declared, "I will not be doing rotations," and stayed put. After the rotation period, there were several students who couldn't get into their desired labs because the spots were filled. From this, I learned that clearly and immediately conveying your enthusiasm might be more important than speaking English fluently.

I think the lab I belonged to had a bit of a startup-like atmosphere at the time. In a lab of about 20 people, the only students were about one per year in the Doctoral Programs; most of the others were postdocs or research scientists. This was a very different impression from the labs at Keio, which were almost entirely composed of fourth-year undergraduates and first- and second-year master's students.

Additionally, I thought the Capstone system, which I hadn't experienced at Keio, was an excellent program. It's a training program where undergraduate students take on projects in labs they are interested in and conduct research under the guidance of senior members, and they can participate from their first year. I also mentored two undergraduate students, supporting their experiments, and I felt that if a system like this had existed at Keio, my first three years might have been more fulfilling.

As a student in the Doctoral Programs, I was engaged in research to improve the sensitivity of diagnostic kits for infectious diseases like influenza. There was a difficult period when my research wasn't producing good results, but with my professor's support, I was able to obtain my PhD. Despite his busy schedule, my professor always made time for a one-on-one meeting with me once a week, listening not only to my research but also to personal matters. If I hadn't been in his lab, I might have quit along the way. I am truly grateful.

After graduating from UW, I was developing a diagnostic kit for anthrax at a company related to my research field. During that time, the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, which could be called the highlight of my 10 years in Seattle. As a result, the entire company's projects shifted to being COVID-19 related. At first, no one could fully grasp the situation, and it was chaotic. However, being involved as a scientist in the entire process for the EUA (Emergency Use Authorization) application for the COVID-19 diagnostic kit—from development and transition to mass production to clinical trials—was an extremely valuable experience. The kit was successfully approved by the FDA and is now distributed within the United States. I felt proud of my work and, at the same time, felt it was the culmination of 10 years of effort, so I saw it as the right time to take on a new challenge.

Around the time the COVID-19 situation began to settle down, and at about the same time I obtained my green card, I received an offer from a startup in Silicon Valley. The concept was interesting, and my wife's former workplace was in the San Francisco area, so we decided to move to California. At the startup, I was involved in developing a sepsis diagnostic device that utilizes immune responses, but there was a layoff, and I had to look for my next job. At that time, a fortunate opportunity arose, and I changed jobs to become a research scientist at the Stanford Human Immune Monitoring Center.

In my current role, I belong to a department that detects and analyzes proteins (such as cytokines) expressed as signals between immune cells. As it turned out, the work is more aligned with my past experience than my previous job, and I feel so fulfilled that I think I've used up several years' worth of luck. Specifically, I collaborate with related startups in Silicon Valley on writing papers, analyze the associated data, and develop software for data analysis. My son was born after I started my current job, so I am grateful that the three of us can live a peaceful life, making use of remote work and parental leave.

Looking back, although I didn't feel my first three years of university were very meaningful, becoming engrossed in my research from the fourth year onward gave meaning to the foundation I had built up to that point. I also believe that my encounter with Daniel changed my life.

This is not just for prospective students, but if you can increase the time you spend engrossed in something without being swayed by what others say, you may find that seemingly unrelated dots begin to connect. Even if you don't have a clear goal or dream right now, please devote yourself completely to what you love and what you can do at this moment. And please cherish the encounters you have with the people around you.

(Graduate of Tokyo Metropolitan Tachikawa High School) March 2008 Entered School 3, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University April 2008 Graduated from the Department of Applied Chemistry, Faculty of Science and Technology, Keio University March 2010 Graduated from the Master's Program in Integrated Design Engineering, Graduate School of Science and Technology, Keio University ● Received the Award for Excellence in Research Activity, Functional Design Science Course April 2010 Joined Terumo Corporation ● Development of balloon catheters for cardiovascular treatment September 2012 Entered the Doctoral Programs in the Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle ● Research related to improving the sensitivity of diagnostic kits for influenza and Ebola August 2018 Graduated from the Doctoral Programs in the Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle September 2018 Research Scientist, InBios International, Inc., Seattle ● Development of diagnostic kits for anthrax and COVID-19 ● Engaged in all aspects of the project related to the EUA application for the COVID-19 diagnostic kit ● Development of a machine learning-based app for measuring the results of infectious disease diagnostic kits July 2022 Senior Scientist, Inflammatix, Inc., Bay Area ● Development of a sepsis diagnostic device by measuring immune responses using mRNA February 2023 Research Scientist, Human Immune Monitoring Center, Stanford University To present