Assistant Professor, Southern Illinois University
Research on the Biology of Inner Ear Hair Cells in the U.S. as a Principal Investigator
Please tell us your name and affiliation
My name is Takushi Miyoshi, an assistant professor running a laboratory since January 2024 as a Principal Investigator at Southern Illinois University School of Medicine in Illinois. In the U.S. , assistant professors are on the tenure track while associate and full professors are tenured. However, there is no practical difference in research. Assistant professors, associate professors and professors run their own laboratories independently.
What you keep in mind in your work and research
I always carefully examine previous studies and try to identify new questions, new methods, and new solutions. For example, my laboratory is studying how inner ear hair cells develop and maintain stereocilia as their mechanosensors to detect sound and acceleration. Recently, we raised a question on how the active cargo transport in stereocilia is regulated and developed single-molecule microscopy in live hair cell stereocilia. We controlled the motor activities of myosins using drug-induced conditional dimerization and mutations disabling the autoinhibition, which we found useful to predict the behavior of myosins under physiological conditions. I often encourage my laboratory members to incorporate their own ideas, no matter how small, rather than simply rehashing previous research.
What do you find interesting about your work and research
Now I have new lifework of "developing my laboratory and members". My past studies were within the scope of what I could plan and perform by myself. From now on, I will cooperate with laboratory members and, if necessary, with the members of other laboratories. My laboratory also needs to be comfortable for the lab members. I am looking forward to seeing my laboratory and members explore the frontier that I have never seen.
Please describe in one word what you think is unique about Kyoto University.
I think people at Kyoto University always try to find and address “problems”. Some people try to change the world. Some people try to change their own lives or help someone else change his/her life. There may be days when we are not understood by people around us. In the research lab where I spent my university days, I was told to “improve at least one thing on each day so that we can make a large progress someday". By keeping finding and addressing good “problems”, I believe we will develop our own field in research or clinical medicine and be a specialist in it.
Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine celebrates 125th anniversary
Congratulations on your 125th anniversary. I believe that Kyoto University's Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine are one of the few universities with cutting-edge researchers. I hope that Kyoto University will continue to lead the world.
