Self Introduction

I came from Vietnam. I am Phan, an M. Sc. candidate in Biotechnology and Life Science. My hobbies are soccer, tennis, and badminton. The sport that I am best at is tennis because my father had taught me for two years before I came to Japan.

It took two years for me to enter graduate school after coming to Japan, as I did part-time jobs while learning Japanese, and then studied as a research student for half a year. Nonetheless, during that time, I learned how important it was to have strong spirit and passion. Since I enjoy taking challenges, I typically do not hesitate at taking chances.

Research Topic

Pre-foldings are 6-mer peptides that collect unfolded proteins in the body and transfer them to group II chaperonins. In the interaction between pre-foldings and chaperonins, the C-terminal domain of the chaperonins has important functions.

Here, by creating a variant of the chaperonins with the C-terminal domain removed we are attempting to evaluate the functions of these domains. We first studied ways to produce Thermococcus sp. Strain KS-1 chaperonin. We studied the structural changes that occur in the chaperonins’ transition from open to closed confirmations, by analyzing protease susceptibility. The results suggest that interactions between pre-foldings and chaperonins occur when chaperonins are in the open confirmation.

Along these lines of investigations we are designing variations of the chaperonins with the C-terminal domain removed. It is our hope that our research will lead to a detailed understanding of the interactions between pre-foldings and group II chaperonins.

Thoughts on having joined the program

Seven months have passed since I first took part in this program. At first, I had many problems. Many experiments are required in my field, and they took me so much time that I couldn’t quite study while attending the program’s classes. The courses on business Japanese language and project management were especially difficult for me and it was hard to study them.

The teachers considered how to make classes enjoyable just for us. Furthermore, they conducted the classes slowly because our Japanese were not good enough. Thanks to them, we could understand even the difficult classes. I really appreciate them.

Advice to others who are considering joining this program

If you have any dream, work towards them. Keep on smiling while you work towards fulfilling your dreams.