On April 1, 2022, I was promoted to Junior Associate Professor at the Institute for iPS Cell Research, Kyoto University, and officially the Iwasaki Lab was launched.
I had been treated as an associate PI for the five years I had been a specified assistant professor, but I became an official PI.

When I became an assistant professor and started to have my own research group, I received advice from Mr. Kan and Dr. Morisawa, the assistant director of CiRA.

Be a leader who can train staffs and entrust work to others.

–>There is a limit to what you can do on your own, and researchers tend to take on everything on their own. And if you don’t have the experience of training others when you are young, you won’t get around well. When you are older, you can’t let go of your own work.

I really appreciate this advice. Especially since I myself also provide proteome analysis support for CiRA, I was in a dilemma at the time that I could not do my own research if I did it all by myself. In the beginning, I had a hard time delegating work to others, but through trial and error, I was able to find a way to get things done. I hope to continue to make improvements so that everyone on the research team can enjoy working together even more in the future.

In addition, my mentor Dr. Yasushi Ishihama, Dr. Masato Nakagawa, who supervised me as a postdoctoral fellow, and Dr. Kazutoshi Takahashi, who I have been working with since he returned from the U.S., are by far the most reliable researchers, and I have learned many things from them. I would like to be as reliable a researcher as they are.

I finished moving into my new lab, started using the EIZO ultrawide 37.5″ monitor that I had longed for, gave three oral presentations in April, and on April 20, the research paper that will serve as the foundation of the Iwasaki Lab was published in iScience on April 20. I will work hard again after the Golden Week.