Why I Became a Researcher

In 1983, when I was a third-year student in graduate school, I had my first oral presentation at an international academic conference. When I think about it now, there’s no doubt in my mind that participating in this academic conference was the opportunity that would later lead to me living my life as a researcher. At a dinner party hosted by the academic conference, by pure coincidence, I sat next to the head of infectious disease research at WHO (it was our first encounter), and he happened to have an interest in the contents of my presentation. In the field of flavivirus (for example, a virus that is in the same family as the one that caused panic before the Rio Olympics due to causing microcephaly) studies, Professor Porterfield of Oxford University in England had been publishing world-leading research one after the other at the time, and I was able to be introduced to him. After that, I continued to talk to a lot of good people, and fortunately, I also passed the notoriously challenging international student exam that is sponsored by the British government. After that, from 1984-1986, I lived the life of a researcher at Oxford University. 　In 1986, I returned to Kansai Medical University, and after that, in 1988, I became a doctoral research fellow and was able to get a job at the Cambridge Medical Research Council’s Molecular Biology Laboratory that was famous as the place where Professor Crick, who I mention in my “Thoughts on Research Theme,” discovered the double helix structure of DNA along with his student, Watson. After that, I began the molecular biology research that I still conduct to this day.