graduate school

I am researching Anopheline mosquitoes that are carriers of malaria in the Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology. I became interested in parasites thanks to a delightful class on veterinary parasitology that I took during my third year. While I never have the best grades, I do enjoy studying if I am interested in the subject. I went on to join the Laboratory of Veterinary Parasitology in my fourth year after getting a good grade in this class. As my family runs a veterinary practice, I initially talked about wanting to set up the best veterinary hospital in Japan; in fact, many people from our lab do go on to become clinical veterinarians. However, the more research I did for my graduation thesis, the more I didn’t want to stop after submitting it, and I decided to enter the Graduate School.

Students are not told what to study in the lab, and they must think about their research topic by themselves. The idea is that it will serve the students well in whatever field they work for them to set out the topic they would like to research and why, how they plan to do it, and, after executing the research, scrutinizing the results regardless of whether or not the aims were achieved. I also experienced many new opportunities at university, such as presenting my research at several conferences. Mosquitoes carrying serious infectious diseases are allegedly the animal responsible for the most human deaths globally. I hope to contribute to society by researching ways to control outbreaks of Anopheline mosquitoes.

I found out how interesting research can be when carrying out work for my undergraduate thesis, and I decided to go on to graduate school. I am investigating the food sources of juvenile bivalve mollusks that belong to the family Unionidae, a type of mussel that inhabits freshwater habitats. During my fourth year at the university, I discovered that Lake Anenuma, where many of these bivalve mollusks live, is rich in biofilms (extracellular polysaccharides produced by bacteria), and I got far enough in my research to hypothesize that it these biofilms are the food source for these creatures. At the graduate school, I am conducting experiments to rear young mollusks in captivity by feeding them these biofilms. Initially, I fed them biofilm from Lake Anenuma based on trial and error, but I hit a wall when they stopped growing after one month.

One possible factor may have been a lack of nutrients, so I am now reassessing the condition of the biofilms and considering the use of other food sources as I proceed with my research. At the same time, I am conducting fieldwork to ascertain the necessary conditions for juvenile mollusks to grow in aquatic habitats. Understanding the conditions needed for them to grow should help with my experiments to rear them in a laboratory environment. Towada Campus is blessed with many rich natural environments nearby, making it the ideal environment to study wildlife.