Last Tuesday we (Prof. Yamamoto, Mr Natsume and myself) visited Prof. Hidehiro Oana in the University of Tokyo. The photo above is the autumn leaves in the campus. We asked Prof. Oana for a training of Mr Natsume for his DNA experiments, in which Mr Natsume is attempting to observe the structure and dynamics of individual DNA molecules. I made such experiments in my student period under the guidance of Prof. Yoshikawa, and the help of Prof. Minagawa, Prof. Matsuzawa and Prof. Oana. Except Prof. Yoshikawa, the rest were phD students at that time. Actually, Prof. Oana graduated from Dept. Applied Phys., Nagoya University, and he was my labo mate. Of course it was long time ago… more than 20 years back. When I was in Tokyo Univ. Agriculture and Tech., I got a budget to buy the apparatus for DNA observation to restart DNA experiments, and I asked Prof. Oana for his help. Some students including Mr Sato, Mr Kawakita, Mr Kinoshita, etc, worked with me. It was long time ago again, more than 10 years back.
In these years I have not made DNA projects for some reasons, and Mr Natsume is struggling to reboot it. Even though the earlier students recorded their experiments in the labo notes, the technology has been almost completely lost in my group. So, I asked Prof. Oana for his help again. Prof. Oana has continued his DNA experiments and (of course) he is an expert for DNA manipulations and observations.
http://www.washizu.t.u-tokyo.ac.jp/oana/oana_index_e.html
Mr Natsume has stayed in Prof. Oana’s laboratory for several days. Mr Natsume may submit a report for what he has learned there.
We greatly appreciate Prof. Oana and his labo members for their very kind consideration for Mr Natsume’s stay this time.