MIMS Spotlight Series: Meet Takahiro Ishizaki

Text written by Nóra Lehotai and Takahiro Ishizaki. Pictures owned by Takahiro Ishizaki.

I had a chat with Takahiro, a postdoctoral fellow in the Bushell group. He joined MIMS in May 2021, leaving behind his parents and girlfriend in Japan for a while. 

Can you tell us about your role at MIMS, what are you working on now? 

I am working as a postdoc in Ellen Bushell’s group thanks to a 2-year scholarship from Japan. This type of scholarship is to encourage Japanese postdocs to go abroad, covering both travel fees and my salary.

The Bushell group is focusing mainly on the host-pathogen interaction of the malaria parasite. I have a molecular biology background and I characterized the signalling proteins of the parasite, both in the erythrocyte invasion, using genetic modification approaches like CRISPR/Cas9 and inducible knock-outs, and also the time-lapse live imaging analysis. Here in Umeå, I expand the experiment scale using the PlasmoGEM knock-out library and determine the parasite signalling proteins associated with the sensing of the host environmental conditions. I am also trying to establish and optimize the conditional knock-out method, which could be applied to the large-scale experiments.

Picture: Takahiro Ishizaki.

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Master student thesis projects in the Henriksson lab

Master thesis projects available in advanced molecular biology protocol development, of relevance for CAR T cells and malaria high-throughput screening! Hard working students who are prepared to roll up their sleeves and move out of their comfort zone are most welcome to apply :)

We are developing several protocols to improve the efficiency of pooled CRISPR or barseq screens, where extracting more information about each cell will boost the statistics. This is especially important when the cells are few (primary cells) or the expansion is uneven (in vivo screens). The project may also be combined with bioinformatics (python, R or java) based on student interests.

Keywords: Cloning, sequencing, inverse PCR, padlock probes, UMIs, mate pairing, HiC, ATACseq, RNAseq, CRISPR, cell culture, lentiviruses, bioinformatics

Illustration by Johan Henriksson. 

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Celebrating World Mosquito Day and its importance

Written by Nóra Lehotai.

World Mosquito Day has been celebrated on 20th August worldwide since 1897. That day, Sir Ronald Ross, a British doctor stationed in India, made the groundbreaking discovery which enabled the future of malaria research: malaria is transmitted from mosquitos to humans only by female mosquitos. He declared this day to be known as “World Mosquito Day” and for his scientific achievements, Ross received the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 1902.

"On World Mosquito Day, I reflect on these annoying flies” - says Claire Sayers, a postdoctoral researcher in Oliver Billker’s group. “While only female mosquitoes bite us to produce eggs, they also feed on nectar and act as pollinators. Mosquitoes have an ecological role, but some species are vectors for deadly diseases such as malaria. Mosquitoes are known as the world’s deadliest animal with over a million people dying from mosquito-borne diseases each year. The WHO estimated that 409,000 people died from malaria in 2019. I study the transmission stages of malaria parasites to better understand how they infect mosquitoes to spread the disease."

Pictures of mosquitos taken by Claire Sayers. All credits: Claire Sayers. 

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A breakthrough publication from Anne-Marie Fors Connolly: Increased risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke following COVID-19

 Text written by Anne-Marie Fors Connolly and Nóra Lehotai.

Photo: Myocardial infarction. Credit: Mostphotos.

A large nationwide study based on all COVID-19 patients in Sweden performed at Umeå University, concludes that the risk of acute myocardial infarction and stroke is three-fold increased the first two weeks following COVID-19. The study was published in The Lancet.

COVID-19 is a complex disease that affects many organs, and we therefore aimed to determine if COVID-19 is an acute risk factor for acute myocardial infarction and stroke, says Anne-Marie Fors Connolly who is a MIMS Clinical Research Fellow, a principal investigator at the Dept. of Clinical Microbiology, and responsible for the study.

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Two MIMS postdocs awarded fellowships from the Swedish Society for Medical Research

Written by Marta Nieckarz, Atin Sharma and Nóra Lehotai. Pictures: Marta Nieckarz and Atin Sharma. Credit: Marta Nieckarz and Atin Sharma.

Marta Nieckarz and Atin Sharma received a three-year fellowship for postdoctoral studies in medical science from the Swedish Society for Medical Research (Svenska Sällskapet för Medicinsk Forskning, SSMF). Marta and Atin are both postdoctoral researchers at MIMS, Umeå University. Marta is a member of the Cava lab (group leader: Felipe Cava) and Atin is a member of the Puhar lab (group leader: Andrea Puhar).

Read more: Two MIMS postdocs awarded fellowships from the Swedish Society for Medical Research