I want to discover unseen solutions and unravel more of the everyday mysteries around me.

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From Tokyo, graduated from Tokyo Metropolitan Chofu Kita High School

He has loved plants since he was a child, and his hobby is gardening. In high school, he described himself as someone who "gets curious about all sorts of things," extending his antenna of interest to a wide range of fields including biology, chemistry, meteorology, society, and politics. At the core of this was a desire to "unravel the widespread mysteries of everyday life." After enrolling in the Faculty of Science and Technology at Keio University, he discovered the true fascination of biology through the Gakumon system and chose the path of biosciences and informatics. What kind of impact did his encounters with various people and studies at the university have on him?

[*] Academic year at the time of the interview (September 2018).

I had a busy but enjoyable life with studies, club activities, and hobbies. I focused on my regular classes for my studies, and for club activities, I was in the table tennis club, which I had been a part of since junior high. I practiced for about three hours after school, four times a week. I also had a fulfilling time with hobbies like gardening.

That's right. I've enjoyed looking at plants since I was in elementary school. I especially liked leaves. I wondered why leaf patterns formed the way they did, and that's what got me interested in their growth process. I grew houseplants like Alocasia, succulents like cacti, and Crassula ovata (money tree). In a way, it connects to my current field of study.

The opportunity arose because of a designated school recommendation. After retiring from my club activities and starting to focus on entrance exam preparation, I began to feel that I wanted to learn a wide variety of things, rather than just studying for exams. Of course, I thought studying for exams was important, but at the same time, I felt that focusing only on exam subjects would lead to a narrow education. So, after consulting with my high school teachers, I decided to use the designated school recommendation. In the free time I gained, I studied fields I didn't have the chance to in high school, like biology, meteorology, and political science. The reason I chose Keio from among the several designated schools was the appeal of the "Gakumon system [*]." The system of choosing a department after studying for a year at the university seemed perfect for me, as someone who gets interested in many different things, because it would allow me to carefully determine what I wanted to study.

[*] Gakumon system: A system where students choose one of five "Gakumon" (academic fields) at the time of admission, gradually narrow down their desired field of study according to their interests and concerns after enrollment, and decide on their department when advancing to their second year.

I feel that studying only one thing narrows my perspective. I've always thought it would be great to understand the wide range of things around me. For example, we don't really know how the weather changes, even though it's something so familiar, right? Things like that make me curious. When I learn something new, it makes me happy, and I want to investigate more and more. It's a repeating cycle.

When I first enrolled, I was interested in materials and had hoped for a different department. I was mainly interested in things like air pollution and energy, but after entering university, my interest in biology surged. One reason was the "Introduction to Biology" class in my first year. When I learned about the mechanisms of life, I thought, "Biology is amazing." I was struck anew by the fact that within a minuscule world, substances like proteins and energy are created, and these come together to form a large individual. In high school, I thought biology wasn't very scientific and was just a subject for memorization. I wanted to study something more theoretical at the time, so realizing that "biology can also be explained theoretically!" was a major discovery for me.

I got deeply involved in puzzle cube competitions. When I was being recruited for clubs after entering university, I found out there was a puzzle cube club. I had decided to start something new in college, so I joined. The Rubik's Cube is probably the most famous puzzle cube, but I discovered a puzzle called the Skewb and became obsessed, practicing for hours every day. I learned solving methods from senior members, developed my own solutions, and participated in competitions. In my third year, I finally achieved the 3rd best official time in Japan. The Skewb is a niche puzzle, so there are only about 100 competitors, but I was still happy (laughs).

At university, I was surprised to find so many different kinds of people: those passionate about their studies and research, those actively involved in social activities like volunteering, and those dedicated to sports or music. Meeting such people was stimulating for me. And as I talked with them about various things, I began to re-evaluate my own values, which led to many discoveries. My perspective on biology is a perfect example of a changed value. I used to think that "the theory of things that can be fully explained scientifically is what's important," but I came to think that "it's more interesting to search for the theory." I started to find enjoyment in "searching for things in an unknown state" that can't be expressed with mathematical formulas. It's the same with puzzle cubes; it's fun to look for unknown solving methods. It's a feeling of venturing into the unknown yourself, rather than just understanding what's already known. Before I knew it, I naturally started to think that way.

One of the characteristics of the Department of Biosciences and Informatics, I think, is its sheer breadth of fields. While learning about the mechanisms of cells from thick textbooks, we also took various classes from the time we entered the department, such as organic chemistry, physical chemistry, and even informatics and programming. This was quite tough at times, but by building a solid foundation here, I believe I acquired the knowledge and thinking skills to keep up with cutting-edge life science research.

Another feature is that you can learn theory and practice simultaneously. In the Department of Biosciences and Informatics, unlike many other departments, the curriculum includes specialized experiments starting from the second year. This allowed us to immediately apply the principles learned in class. We could gain a real sense of "does this really work this way?" or "is this how the data comes out?" through hands-on experiments, which led to a deeper understanding.

There is a research field called "reconstitution of life," which aims to understand the boundary between life and non-life by creating things that function like life from non-living matter. Within that field, I am focusing my research on cell-free extracts, which are derived from living cells by removing components like proteins. It's strange, but when this cell-free extract is handled outside of a living cell at high concentrations similar to those inside a cell, the protein synthesis machinery almost completely stops functioning. I find this fascinating. I am trying to elucidate what is necessary for this high-concentration cell-free extract to function properly by using both experiments and simulations. The faculty in my lab tell me to try various things, so I'm repeating experiments, changing various conditions, and trying this and that while formulating my own hypotheses. I've set it up so that when the extract works properly, GFP (Green Fluorescent Protein) is expressed, and it's truly a joy when I see that green light.

I want to be involved in food quality control. Many graduates from the Department of Biosciences and Informatics go into drug discovery companies, but I'm drawn to food. I've always had a desire to unravel the mysteries of everyday things, so I feel that food is more familiar than drug discovery. We take the food around us for granted, but it would be a disaster if a dangerous substance got into it. Food safety must be absolutely protected. However, incidents like foreign object contamination and mass food poisoning still occur from time to time, and the countermeasures are still insufficient in some aspects. Therefore, I hope to use cutting-edge science to develop food inspection methods that can check for abnormalities with higher precision and can be used at a lower cost.