Doctoral Students of Ueno Laboratory win the CSJ Student Presentation Award 2023

From left: Thuc Toan PHAM, Mariko Kojima and Kosuke Kikuchi won the CSJ Student Presentation Award 2023

Comment

It is a great honor to receive the CSJ Student Presentation Award 2023. In this presentation, I shared our joint research with the Vignolini group at the University of Cambridge, UK, where I did visiting research for three months last year. Despite its great potential for biomaterials, the combination of cellulose nanocrystals with proteins is poorly explored. Based on the discussion and comments I received in the presentation, I will further conduct experiments and deepen this new research field.
I sincerely thank Prof. Takafumi Ueno and Asst. Prof. Satoshi Abe, and members of Ueno Lab for guiding me through my research project and helping my daily lab life. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Silvia Vignolini, Dr. Bruno Frka-Petesic, and Bio-inspired Photonics Lab (BIP) members of the Yusuf Hamied Department of Chemistry at the University of Cambridge, UK. I would like to thank Prof. Atsushi Shishido, Asst. Prof. Miho Aizawa, Mr. Takuto Ishiyama, and members of the Laboratory for Chemistry and Life Science of the Institute of Innovative Research at the Tokyo Institute of Technology.

Comment

I am extremely honored to receive the CSJ Student Presentation Award 2023. In this study, I succeeded in the structure determination of intrinsically disordered proteins, which is difficult to characterize due to their flexibility in crystal, by the protein crystal engineering using the rigid in-cell protein crystals as a scaffold. This result will lead to rational strategies of structure determination of the challenging taget molecules. I sincerely thank Professor Takafumi Ueno, Assistant Professor Satoshi Abe and Specially Appointed Assistant Professor Basudev Maity for guiding me through my research project. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to Dr. Kunio Hirata at RIKEN/SPring-8 center. I am grateful for the members of my laboratory and their support for my daily life in the laboratory.

Comment

It's a great honor to receive the CSJ Student Presentation Award 2023. In the presentation, I discussed our latest result on incorporating protein assembly into in-cell protein crystals, especially protein cages. We successfully developed a strategy to immobilize ferritin, a typical protein cage, into the nearly surface of polyhedra - an in-cell protein crystal platform. Our result is to expand the possibilities for constructing protein-crystal-based solid materials.
In addition to the honor of receiving this award, it is even more meaningful that I had the opportunity to share our study with researchers outside of the university and receive their feedback in person. This was especially significant as it marked the first time we could resume on-site meetings after a long period of conducting them online due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Furthermore, on this occasion, I express my sincere gratitude to Prof. Takafumi Ueno, Assistant Prof. Satoshi Abe, and the members of Ueno Lab for guiding me throughout my research project and supporting me in my daily lab life.
Ultimately, I am committed to continuing my exploration of life's surprising yet unknown realms.