For Moe Shishido, who just completed her second year of undergraduate studies, there has always been a clear career path ahead.

"Even when I was applying to college," she explained, "I was applying with becoming a physician scientist in mind."

Born in Japan and spending her childhood and teenage years in Hong Kong, Japan, and Thailand, Shishido is now on the pre-medical track, studying biochemistry and molecular biology at Brown University in the United States and working on sustained drug release research at the Center for Spine Tumor and Chordoma Research.

With research interests in cancer and neurodegenerative disorders, she joined the laboratory of Professor Shin Kaneko in the Department of Cell Growth and Differentiation for about three weeks during July and August this summer through the CiRA Research Internship Program to gain even more research experience under her belt.

"I was interested in the Kaneko Laboratory because it explores the intersection between iPS cells and how they can be used for cancer immunotherapies," Shishido said.

During her internship, she worked with her mentor, Researcher Dr. Gulfiya Kadyrzhanova, to follow up on previous work showing how a protein could prevent T cell exhaustion—a problem faced by current chimeric antigen receptor T cell therapies. She learned to culture iPS cells and differentiate them into T cells using a specific protocol developed by the Kaneko laboratory. In addition, she learned molecular biology techniques, such as creating recombinant plasmids and electroporation to introduce those plasmids into cells, and even experienced isolating stem cells from umbilical cord blood donated for research.

"I would say my internship went very well despite being here for only three weeks," she said when discussing her experience. "I was able to acquire a lot of new technical skills and get hands-on experience, giving me a different lens to how research works. I have been in different labs before, but I wanted to diversify my research experiences."

While back in Japan for the internship, she had time to visit Nara and Osaka on the weekends. Shishido also enjoyed meeting many scientists at CiRA who have both medical and scientific training, a career goal she has set for herself, and learning about their experiences.

"Through the experience I had during the past three weeks, I want to come back here again and maybe go to a different lab if they accept me again," she laughed.

Perhaps we will see Shishido back in Kyoto again on her journey to becoming a physician scientist!