CiRA Reporter

CiRA Reporter

Home › News & Events › CiRA Reporter › Reliable "Behind-the-Scenes" Support for Researchers and Students

People

December 20, 2024

Reliable "Behind-the-Scenes" Support for Researchers and Students

Sanae Kamibayashi

Sanae Kamibayashi is a technician in the Shin Kaneko Lab, which strives to use immune cells produced from iPS cells for cancer therapy. She assists researchers and students with experiments and keeps lab supplies in order, working behind the scenes to ensure everyone’s research goes smoothly. We asked Kamibayashi about her work as a technician.

I have been a technical staff of the Kaneko Lab since shortly after it started, so this year marks my 10th year on the job. I regularly assists researchers and students needing help, mainly with maintenance cultures of iPS cells (culturing iPS cells in their undifferentiated state) and their differentiation into T cells (stimulating undifferentiated iPS cells to differentiate them into T cells involved in immunity).

Before joining CiRA, I worked in a lab at a different university. That lab was working on removing proteins involved in immune regulation from blood using fibers and returning the blood to the body. At the time, I was analyzing blood and doing similar immune-related experiments as now.

When I first joined the Kaneko Lab, I was not involved in experiments but mainly assisted with administrative tasks such as ordering. I had no experience with cell culture back then, so I could not believe I would be culturing cells as I do now. However, when we were short on staff, Kaneko asked me to try cell culture, so I said, “Please let me learn!” He taught me well, so I am thankful for his open-mindedness and willingness to let me try everything.

Is your work challenging?

It can be challenging sometimes because of increased experimental load or working against submission deadlines. However, I do not mind being busy and enjoy working in a good environment in the Kaneko Lab, where I can freely and casually communicate with other lab members. Moreover, they are all excellent and motivated people, so I always want to help them to the best of my ability.

Share is caring!

The Kaneko Lab has many members, with over 10 technicians alone. With many members, the volume of e-mails and information increases, so inevitably, there were times when we missed e-mails or failed to communicate. Therefore, we have weekly meetings and technical staff-only meetings twice weekly, meeting minutes, e-mails, and online task management tools. We also emphasize the importance of sharing everything with everyone. If you don’t tell others about it, you would easily forget it.

It is critical to share information with others, no matter how big or small something is, because sharing information allows me to see the entire lab operation and makes it much easier to make progress. Since I know everyone’s workload, I can easily see who might need help in advance and offer my assistance. In addition, I will remember tasks that only come up once a year. So, even for minor details, I cannot just say, "Oh well, it will be fine," and brush them off.

Efficient research to minimize loss

When I started doing cell culture experiments, I made detailed written experimental protocols to check off items I completed to minimize errors because things could be delayed for a couple of weeks or put on hold if I made a mistake or any unnecessary movements. Of course, it is impossible to avoid mistakes completely, so even now, I check everything carefully when I differentiate iPS cells with many reagents to ensure I recognize mistakes as quickly as possible.

The cost of essentials for experiments, from plastic products to special reagents, has risen, so I do my best to be as efficient as possible. We cannot conduct all the necessary experiments without adequate research funds, so we are always grateful to those who support and donate to our work.

Sanae Kamibayashi conducting an experiment

Future prospectives

The Kaneko Lab plans to initiate a project to improve the lab environment by hiring a cleanup professional, and I have been invited to join this project. Researchers are concerned about the lack of space and organization in their laboratories. Nonetheless, it is easy for things to become cluttered, no? If you are doing experiments in a messy environment, it will be easy to make mistakes, and your work might get delayed. It may be difficult because we look at it every day and get used to clutter, so we are very excited to receive professional opinions to help us create an ideal environment suitable for research.

  1. Interview and written by Yumi Tsubokura


    Technical Staff, CiRA Hotta Laboratory

    (Translation: Kelvin Hui Ph.D., CiRA Research Promoting Office)

go top