Research Scientist
Osaka, Japan
o Analyzed symbiotic interactions between commensal thermophile and its partner microbe; physiological studies such as growth behavior, metabolic pathway analysis, genome analysis by using AKTA-FPLC, 2-D electrophoresis coupled with MALDI-TOF-MS, LC-MS, whole-genome sequencing by using various bioinformatics tools, and molecular studies to understand molecular mechanisms responsible for uncultivability. (2+ papers published)o Discovered and purified novel growth-stimulating factors (proteins and metabolites) in symbiotic interactions between commensal microorganisms by using AKTA-FPLC and 2-D electrophoresis coupled with MALDI-TOF-MS, LC-MS analyses, and developed novel cultivation methods for the uncultured anaerobic bacteria which resulted in isolating 16 strains of novel anaerobic spore-forming thermophiles. (2+ papers published)o Analyzed proteomic profile of whole-cell proteins and extracellular proteins produced by the commensal microorganism by using 2-D gel analysis coupled with MALDI-TOF MS (Ultraflex, Bruker Co.), LC-MS (APEX IV, Bruker Co.), and various bioinformatics tools (MASCOT software, COGs database, KEGG database, SignalP, iPOST, TMHMM 2.0 software, SecretomeP, PSORT, SOSUIsignal, JVirGel 2.0, and so on) for the prediction of protein function and domain structure. (2+ papers published)o Involved in the genome sequencing project of the symbiotic microorganisms, Symbiobacterium toebii for the annotation, function prediction, and classification of individual genes with several bioinformatics tools such as Pedant-Pront-Pro, genome gambler, etc.