In the Spotlight-Postdoc.

Abstract

Masahiro Uesaka is a Guest Co-editor of this special issue on recapitulation. Website: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Masahiro_Uesaka With whom and where did you study? After I finished my Bachelor of Science in Biology at Kyoto University, I joined Dr. Kiyokazu Agata's laboratory. For my PhD, I studied species-specific long noncoding RNAs and their regulatory roles in epigenetics, working with Drs. Takuya Imamura and Kinichi Nakashima. After completing my PhD at Kyoto University, I moved to the University of Tokyo, where I worked on EvoDevo research as a postdoc with Dr. Naoki Irie. I've continued to work with Naoki even after joining Dr. Shigeru Kuratani's laboratory at RIKEN BDR as a researcher. I was very lucky to have these great mentors, who kindly taught me many of the things important to established scientists. What got you interested in biology? When did you know evodevo was for you? Many biologists say that, as children, they were interested in animals and plants, but I wasn't that kind of child. Until I entered university, I'd never studied biology, but it was at college that I found it to be full of very exciting mysteries. In particular, the diversity and commonality of life fascinated me, so I decided to become a biologist. My research area in graduate school was epigenetics: I studied the epigenetic functions of noncoding RNAs through transcriptome and epigenome analyses. As part of these studies I also read papers and books on EvoDevo topics. That's how I became interested in both evolution and embryogenesis. I found it very exciting to imagine several hundred million years of evolution based on studies of embryogenesis, which occurs in the present day. So I decided to move into the field of EvoDevo. I started addressing the question of whether or not general rules exist between evolution and development. What makes an EvoDevo lab particularly attractive? To address some EvoDevo topics we need to work with nonmodel organisms, so an EvoDevo lab should ideally support the setting-up of a new system to do this. Furthermore, easy access to high-throughput sequencers and sufficient computer resources to analyze large datasets is also important. Fortunately, all the labs where I've worked so far have provided me with such resources and opportunities and have helped me to pursue my own research projects. What is the biggest challenge you face as a young researcher? Young researchers are expected not only to publish papers but also to propose original research ideas and concepts. We have to come up with our own questions that no one has come up with before and try to answer them: This can lead to advances in research. To generate new questions that can change our perception of the world, we need to think from different perspectives. Interdisciplinarity is important for that, because the boundaries between the research fields sometimes prevent us from thinking creatively and freely. I think that not only focusing on one's research topic but also spending more time cultivating interests in a variety of research fields helps us to broaden our perspectives—and that's important for pondering the nature of evolution.