Seiya Nakashima (Doshisha University)
in the CiRA Open Lab

Seiya Nakashima, a third-year student in the Faculty of Life and Medical Sciences at Doshisha University, participated in a CiRA research internship for about six weeks from August to September in the laboratory of Associate Professor Hidetoshi Sakurai (Department of Clinical Application).

The connection between Nakashima, CiRA, and the Sakurai Lab dates back 10 years, when Nakashima was in fifth grade. His cousin was suffering from muscular dystrophy, which sparked his interest in research on treatments for muscular dystrophy using iPS cells. After sending a letter to CiRA, the International Public Relations Office introduced him to Associate Professor Sakurai, who was working on developing therapies for this type of neuromuscular disorder. Nakashima then wrote to Sakurai, who invited him to CiRA and provided him with the opportunity to learn about the state of related research. That day became the turning point when Nakashima decided that his future dream was to conduct research on muscular dystrophy at CiRA.

Ten years later, Nakashima’s passion for research has only grown stronger. At Doshisha University, he is majoring in molecular biology and working hard to acquire the fundamental knowledge necessary for basic medical research. Since entering university, he has also challenged himself to read research papers independently, constantly keeping up with the latest scientific advances. Furthermore, to broaden his research perspective, he has attended a wide range of academic conferences, from basic to clinical, such as meetings of the Japan Muscle Society, the Molecular Biology Society of Japan, and the Japanese Society of Child Neurology.

During this internship, Nakashima took on the challenge of identifying non-essential growth factors added to the culture medium when inducing differentiation of iPS cells into skeletal muscle stem cells. The Sakurai Lab is researching methods to treat skeletal muscle diseases, such as muscular dystrophy, by transplanting iPS cell-derived skeletal muscle stem cells. For clinical application, it is necessary to reduce growth factors as much as possible for safety and cost reasons.

Using the existing protocol developed by the Sakurai Lab, Nakashima cultured iPS cells under various combinations of growth factors from day 14 to day 31 of induction into skeletal muscle stem cells. On day 31, he evaluated and compared the maturity of the muscle cells. His efforts paid off as he successfully identified growth factors that are not essential for generating skeletal muscle stem cells. This achievement opens the door to further improving the induction protocol developed by the Sakurai Lab.

Toward the end of the internship, Nakashima presented his results to CiRA researchers and graduate students. Wanting to engage in closer discussions with attendees, he chose a poster presentation format. As he had hoped, he was able to discuss directly with researchers and received plenty of feedback. Based on the advice, he used the remaining internship period to design additional experiments and conduct further validation on his own.

Nakashima conducting experiments in the Open Lab

"I felt I was constantly in a rush because of the limited time, so I could not afford to fail any experiments. But when everything went well after taking the utmost care, I experienced a sense of accomplishment like never before," said Nakashima as he revealed just how fruitful the internship was. After completing the program, he celebrated with cake together with his graduate student mentor from the Sakurai Lab.

The six weeks in the Sakurai Lab strengthened Nakashima’s enthusiasm for research even further. He shared, "Through this internship, I learned about both the potential and challenges of cell transplantation therapy for muscular dystrophy. In the future, I want to join the Sakurai Lab at CiRA as a graduate student and develop treatments for muscular dystrophy by combining iPS cells with other technologies."

We look forward to the day Nakashima becomes a graduate student in the Sakurai Lab at CiRA.