Research Overview

Recent technological advances have allowed us to detect things that have been overlooked previously. As a result, the classical central dogma, which states that "messenger RNA transcribed from DNA is translated into proteins to carry out cellular functions," has recently begun to be revised.

We are focusing on molecules previously excluded in the dogma, such as unannotated small proteins and functional RNAs. These molecules are prime candidates as the "missing pieces" in explaining biological phenomena and molecular mechanisms.

With this new perspective, we aim to unravel the mysteries of cell fate determination using pluripotent stem cells as a model. Our current research projects are:

1. Understanding the role of translation regulators in the maintenance of pluripotency
2. Examining the cellular functions played by non-canonical translation and small proteins
3. Elucidating the roles of functional RNAs expressed in pluripotent stem cells
4. Recapitulating the pluripotency networks by combining functional screening and bioinformatics