User:Umeno

From 2006.igem.org

Greetings!
I am Daisuke Umeno, who is the only one oficially supporting CHIBA Team (too bad for them!).
I am working hard to stay in iGEM business. Surviving iGEM - This is my biggest challenge of this year.

My iGEM

Stay back. This is my war....

Basic information

Tel/Fax: +81+43-290-3413
E mail: umeno[AT]faculty.chiba-u.jp
Shipping address:
Department of Applied Chemistry and Biotechnology
Chiba University, Japan
1-33, Yayoi-Cho, Inage-ku, Chiba City
Chiba, 263-8522 JAPAN
+81-43-290-3413

My Research History ~Almost Lost in the Pacific

1998 Ph.D. in Chemistry, Mizuo Maeda lab. (Kyushu University, JPN)
Grafting synthetic polymers on dsDNAs
I developed the way to freely graft the synthetic polymers on dsDNA. Here DNA was just a part of material, rather than the genetic component. I think our work was one of the very first attempts to use long stretch of DNA as a scaffold for assembling or clustering molecular function. I showed that polymer jacketted DNAs are ligatable/recuttalbe with another piece of DNA. This means you can connect dsDNA modified with different polymers at you will- exactly as molecular biologist does. We claimed DNA is the best material for assembling or aligning polymer function in submicrometer scale.
I also showed the transcription can be regulated by the dynamics of polymer grafted on DNA. Alas! this part of the project has been unpublished for 7 years now, but I earned a prize on it in the research competition held by Newspaper/ Media group (Fuji sankei Group). With the prize money, I bought Miata (Mazda). But Oops, I ruined it in 8 months.

1999-2003 PostDoc at Frances H. Arnold lab. (Caltech)
Directed evolution of biosynthetic pathways
I was evolving carotenoid pathways toward novel and unique ones that never existed in Natural history. With cool students Alex Tobias and Adam Hartwick, we tested many theory on pathway evolution. Here I learned almost all about biology. Also I developed crystal clear vision on what kind of professor I would like to be. I met many special people such as Chris Voigt (UCSF, yes, that Chris) and Pat Cirino (Penn State).

2003-2005 Senior Fellow at Lawlence A. Loeb lab. (UW)
Controlling mutation frequency in E coli cell
They developed a pretty cool mutator E. coli strain. I was trying to adjust their system for protein engineering. I was also involved in the glycosylase project between L.A. Loeb and D. Baker. Unlike the way I familiar with, they were computationally designing the new pocket of DNA repair enzyme to do new job. Because of my tranferring (and maybe lack of smartness), neither of the project are completed yet. Still going. I am working on it, boss!

Now, As a CHIBA MAN

April 2005 Became a faculty at Chiba (Associate Professor in Dept Applied Chemistry and Biotech.)
Our team is quite new, and we started lots of things in synthetic biology field. Keywords are E coli mutator (Loeb), phage mutator, switching (iGEM kind), display techniques, DNA based-materials, and pathway enginerring.

My HOBBIES
1. iGEM
Of course this comes first!!

2. Making iGEM Demo CAR (Produced/ Powered by [http://www.rasty.tv/ Rasty])
Daisuke makes his own iGEM project; creating iGEM CHIBA Demo Car.
This is very similar to what iGEM members are doing to E. coli. I am remaking my very normal sedan (4 door, Toyota 1996) to something unique, with very limited knowledge ......and with even more limited budget. One good thing is that he got a strong support from Rasty, one of the very best/ famous car tuners in Tokyo area!!

3. Asking for money and tires
This hobby I am a bit tired of. No big success, but I am still working on it.

4. Being taken care of by my family (one way)
I have lots (iGEM students) to take care of, and I AM the one who should be well treated at home.

5. Taking a nap in a train (and finding myself in somewhere I never know)

More About Me:

[http://chem.tf.chiba-u.jp/~umeno/ My HP]
[http://graft.web.infoseek.co.jp/index2.html Ume Group HP]
[http://chem.tf.chiba-u.jp/igem/index.html iGEM CHIBA HP]