Andi in Japan visiting collaborators & at a conference in Yokohama

Andi in Japan visiting collaborators & at a conference in Yokohama

04 Dec 2025

Andi took advantage of the invitation to speak at the Japanese Society of Molecular Biology (JSMB) Conference in Yokohama and combined it with visiting two collaborators’ labs in Japan: Masahito Ikawa’s lab at Osaka University, which also led to an inspiring discussion with Masaru Okabe, Masa’s former PhD advisor, and Tomohiro Nishizawa and Yongchan Lee at Yokohama University.

The conference in Yokohama brought about lots of unexpected opportunities to meet old friends, including Nadine Vastenhouw from Geneva and Tatsuya Nishino from Tokyo University, and make new ones with Japanese colleagues. It also demonstrated that despite not speaking Japanese, (1) one can follow talks in Japanese if the slides are well-prepared in English, and (2) one be lucky to find extremely interesting posters amongst the 3000+ presenters!

Overall, it was a fun and inspiring visit, strengthening excisting connections and making new ones!