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"I
took the entrance exam to study biology in college without taking the exam in
biology."
The team leader of the Cell Recovery Mechanisms Team, Masayuki Miura, said with
a wry smile: "To tell the truth, I didn't choose biology as a subject for
the university entrance exam. I studied biology in high school, but not as a subject
for the entrance exam. I didn't even understand the basics such as protein synthesis
by genes, and was totally lost when I first started the biology course in the
Faculty of Science, Tokyo Metropolitan University."
It's amazing that he didn't take biology in the entrance exam for the biology
course, so I asked if he had changed his first choice of course just before the
exam. "I decided to study biology in university when I started high school",
Miura answered.
"I had long wanted to study biology at university and to become a biologist,
but as that would mean focusing entirely on biology, I decided to study other
subjects at high school." This explains why he felt lost after starting university.
"I remember that a math professor at university once told me, 'I know some
students want to study not only math but also other subjects that could be useful
in the future other than biology, but I recommend that you tackle the subjects
that you need now, because time is limited'."
Hints from other fields
Miura says that the professor's words made little sense then, but are clear now.
"For example, researchers can learn about unexpected discoveries and gain
motivation by reading various papers by other researchers in different fields,
as well as in one's speciality. That's the ideal situation, but in reality there's
little time for reading such papers, so you have to concentrate on your present
needs or interests rather than trying various things."
But this need not restrict one's scope of interest. "For example, my research
on the death of mammalian cells progressed because of things I learned outside
my main field of research.
"In 1992, he was studying in Dr. Junyig Yuan's laboratory at Massachusetts
General Hospital, Harvard University Medical School as a Fogarty International
Research Fellow. Miura knew that the genes ced3 and ced4 were closely involved
in the death of roundworm cells and had hoped to conduct research on this at Dr.
Yuan's laboratory. However, Dr. Yuan conducted research on mammals, and not on
roundworms.
Miura was disappointed, but one day he noticed during his research that a mammalian
gene, ICE, has a very similar action to that of the roundworm gene, ced3. This
led him to research the death of mammalian cells.
"There were few researchers who considered using roundworms to provide clues
for research on the death of mammalian cells, so it all goes to show that being
interested in things outside your speciality can lead to unexpected results."
Seeking answers in the organisms, not just a thought
"Studying things outside your speciality in order to pursue your chosen
goal may seem contradictory, but it can actually lead to the same goal",
according to Miura.
"Research styles vary. Each researcher should adopt his or her own style.
My style is to study subjects somewhat related to my chosen field simultaneously.
I've decided not to conduct research toward a predetermined goal, because the
correct answer is not always deduced by the researcher, but is sometimes taught
by the organism itself. |
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