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From Keio Shonan Fujisawa Senior High School, a private school in Kanagawa Prefecture

After living abroad in France and the United States for 13 years, I returned to Japan. I have been interested in life since I was young, and even before entering university, I had a clear goal of joining the Department of Biosciences and Informatics at the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology, and I studied hard to achieve it. During my university life, while cultivating a wide range of knowledge, I also focused on club activities and part-time jobs, broadening my horizons by experiencing a variety of environments. I am dedicated to my research to unravel the fundamental question of what life is.

[*] Academic year at the time of the interview (November 2020).

I lived abroad in France and the United States from birth until the summer of my second year of junior high school. I only came to Japan to visit my grandparents' house during summer vacation, so when I returned, my Japanese was rather poor... I studied kanji and honorifics desperately. At the high school I entered through the entrance exam for returnee students, I joined the men's tennis team and spent my days with morning practices, strength training, and practice matches. Until my second year of high school, my life revolved around club activities, but from the third year, I chose the science track and focused on my studies with my desired faculty in mind.

When I entered high school, I hadn't thought about university, but I grew to like the school's atmosphere and made good friends, so I started to think it would be good to continue on to Keio University. I also thought that I could spend my university life in Japan and go abroad again for graduate school. During a university tour in my third year of high school, I visited a lab in the Department of Biosciences and Informatics at the Keio University Faculty of Science and Technology. The experiments were interesting and memorable, and the senior students were kind, which solidified my goal of entering the department. When I enrolled, I decided to gain knowledge in chemistry before proceeding to the Department of Biosciences and Informatics, so I chose Academic Cluster 3 [*].

[*] Academic Cluster 3: At the time of enrollment in the 2014 academic year, this "Academic Cluster" allowed students to advance to one of four departments: the Department of Applied Chemistry, the Department of Applied Physics and Physico-Informatics, the Department of Chemistry, or the Department of Biosciences and Informatics. The names and composition of each Academic Cluster have been changed for students enrolling from the 2020 academic year onward.

I like animals, but I've always been more fond of DNA and organic compounds. Take the compound glucose, for example. Its molecular formula is C ₆ H ₁₂ O ₆ , composed of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Individually, these are just charcoal and air. I was fascinated by how they could combine to create energy for life, which sparked my interest in organic chemistry and biology. Also, when I took a philosophy class in high school, we had a discussion on the grand theme of "What does it mean to be human?" and the question of "What is life?" really stuck with me. I decided to enter the Department of Biosciences and Informatics because I wanted to solve that question.

The Department of Biosciences and Informatics is a relatively small department with 43 students per year. There are many required classes, and since all 43 of us learn in one classroom, we are basically always together. In our second and third undergraduate years, there was a lot to memorize, which felt like an extension of high school classes. Also, the department holds social gatherings, so it's easy to become friends with many people, visit labs, and the distance between students and faculty is close. While there are fewer labs than in other departments, the research fields are wide-ranging, allowing us to utilize various scientific technologies. Recently, there has been a movement to invigorate the study of biology by combining it with broad fields like physics (biology x physics) and mathematics (biology x mathematics), and my own lab conducts research that mixes knowledge from various areas such as mathematics, computers, and biology.

I recommend the Department of Biosciences and Informatics not only to those interested in biology but also to those who are not. Even if you didn't study biology in high school, you can learn it at university. In fact, this is a department where people who can apply knowledge from other fields like physics, mathematics, and chemistry can truly shine. By merging with a wide range of research fields, it leads not only to an understanding of life itself but also to the development of technologies that can help save lives. I believe that studying life is a research field that leads to an understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to live, ultimately deepening one's understanding of oneself.

The most memorable experience was an experiment in a required third-year undergraduate class where we measured the electrical potential of an earthworm's axon. We had to dissect an earthworm to extract nerve cells and measure their neural activity. Dissecting a live earthworm was difficult, and I kept failing at building the experimental apparatus. It was very challenging, but it was my first time conducting an experiment where I mechanically analyzed a biological mechanism while physically handling a living organism, so it was a fresh experience. It deepened my understanding of biology and connects to my current research.

I was in a light music club and played the drums for four years. After my science classes, I would eat lunch with friends from other faculties in the club room, then go back to class and spend time with my science friends. Spending time with such a variety of people was stimulating. I believed that staying in one place would narrow my world, so I didn't want to be in an environment with only science students. Of course, I studied, but I also wanted to do things other than studying, so I enjoyed being in diverse environments. The atmosphere in the club was quite different from the Department of Biosciences and Informatics, where many people are serious, which was a good thing (laughs). It allowed me to switch gears and probably helped blow off stress from studying. From my second year, I became an officer and devoted myself to behind-the-scenes work like managing instruments, planning and running live shows, and handling the sound on the day of the performance. Also, wanting to use the English skills I had acquired from living abroad, I started a part-time job as an English Juku instructor, which I still continue today. The Department of Biosciences and Informatics involves a lot of memorization, so before test periods, I would take a break from my club and part-time job to hole up in the study room, managing my time effectively.

I am researching the individuality of E. coli, one of the most fundamental forms of life. All E. coli have the same DNA information, but just as human twins develop differences in personality and athletic ability due to various factors as they grow, E. coli also develop slight individual differences as they grow. Hypothesizing that one of these factors is nutrition, I observe E. coli growing in two environments with different nutrient levels for long periods under a microscope and analyze the data with a computer. By exploring the factors that create individuality in E. coli, we may be able to understand why human individuality arises and also contribute to elucidating the causes of diseases. For example, in the case of cancer, we know that abnormalities in genes can lead to cancer cells, but I believe there may be other reasons why cancer develops. I believe this could lead to the clarification of many diseases in the world with unknown causes.

This observation of E. coli requires being glued to a microscope for about 40 hours per session. During the pandemic, there were periods when we couldn't enter the lab, so I consulted my academic advisor about the possibility of controlling the microscope remotely. We modified it so I could access and operate it from home. I set up the experimental apparatus on campus and then conduct the follow-up observations remotely. Although the remote experiment was a necessity due to the pandemic, it was a good thing because it reduced the physical burden. I can access it 24 hours a day, even from my bed at home, whereas before I sometimes had to pull all-nighters.

The Systems Biology Laboratory, to which I belong, is a field of study that views organisms as machines and seeks to clarify the mechanisms that drive life. I chose it because I thought that by representing living things with mathematical formulas and quantifying them, I could understand life in more detail. Initially, I was considering a lab that deals with artificial cells, but I felt that identifying the yet-to-be-elucidated mechanisms of cells and organisms was a better fit for me, so I switched to systems biology. One of the features of the lab is its emphasis on presentations for research announcements. Since we conduct research that combines various fields, we sometimes go to academic conferences where researchers from different fields gather. We value communicating in a way that anyone can understand, and I believe this is a skill that will be useful when I enter the workforce. Also, there's a policy of putting our all not just into research but also into play. Last year, we aimed to win the inter-lab softball tournament, and all the students in the lab gave it their all physically (laughs). That ability to switch between on and off is also part of its appeal.

When I first enrolled, I was considering going to graduate school abroad, but I wanted to see the research I started as an undergraduate through to the end, so I remained at the Graduate School of Science and Technology. Right now, I'm in the process of compiling my research results into my master's thesis. After graduation, I plan to work for a private company in a research and development position. During my job search, I applied to various companies without limiting myself to a specific field, and as a result, I received a job offer from a systems equipment company. It's very different from my current research field of biology, but systems biology is originally based on the concept of system control, which is used in machines. You could say that the organism is just replaced by a machine, so I believe I can apply my research mindset and what I've learned at university.