Assoc.Prof. IKEUCHI Momoko
Plant Regeneration and Morphogenesis
Please tell us about your own research and what you find interesting about it.
We study organ regeneration and morphogenesis in plants. Plants have outstanding regenerative capacity, which always amazes us. For instance, even isolated single cells from somatic tissues can reconstruct their bodies in some species. Many important questions remain unsolved in the research field of plant regeneration. I am especially curious how plant cells can self-organize to reconstruct organized multicellular systems.
Please tell us about the difficulties and joys of the doing research.
Doing research is doing something new, so it is always challenging and sometimes rewarding. I myself struggled and suffered a lot during graduate school, because I was not able to develop my projects very successfully. Now as a PI, I am trying my best to manage projects and organize the team so that my lab members can enjoy exciting science. I myself love various aspects of research activities, including writing research papers, designing research projects, discussing with colleagues and collaborators and performing microscopic observations. I purely love plants, and I enjoy creative activities to uncover the secrets of their living. I hope I can share the excitement and joy of doing research with my lab members.
Please tell us about the expected results and social significance of the project.
Whereas plants are generally acknowledged to be highly regenerative, regenerative capacity largely varies depending on species and many major crop cultivars display poor regenerative responses. Given that the regenerative capacity is the basis of many agricultural applications such as clonal propagation and genetic modification, improvement of the regenerative capacity is highly awaited. We mainly work on a model plant species Arabidopsis and identify novel regulatory mechanisms of organ regeneration. We expect that what we discover in the model species can be applied to crops in improving tissue-culture based regeneration.
A message of support for students who are about to take the exam
Please express your passion for research at the interview! We always welcome highly motivated students.
What websites, books, review articles, and so on, do you recommend for studying in order to apply for the lab ?
- Mechanisms in plant development
(https://www.wiley.com/en-us/Mechanisms+in+Plant+Development-p-9780865427426 ) - The art of genes: how organisms make themselves
(https://www.amazon.co.jp/Art-Genes-Organisms-Make-Themselves/dp/0192862081 )
What do you do to keep yourself fresh?
Playing with my son, go hiking and visiting historical places.