Neuro Global International Joint Graduate Program,
Tohoku University

Graduate School of Medicine
Misako Tatehana

My name is Misako Tatehana and I was a graduate student in the Department of Developmental Neuroscience (Prof. Noriko Osumi), Graduate School of Medicine. I completed the doctoral program and the Neuro Global Program (NGP). I would like to write about what I have learned and felt as I look back over the past years.

I was accepted as a student of the NGP program when I was in the master's program, and I participated in many seminars and events throughout the master’s and doctoral program.

I applied for this program with the goals of "improving my English so that I can communicate with researchers all over the world without language barriers" and "studying abroad to learn about the latest technologies.

Regarding the first one, seminars by overseas researchers, academic English courses, and interaction with NGP students have made me less anxious about communicating in English. When I first joined the NGP, I remember that I was nervous just by giving a presentation in English, but at the international conferences I attended during my doctoral program, I was able to discuss in English without feeling stressed. I received comments from researchers and graduate students from all over the world, and sometimes we gave each other advice on experimental techniques, which was a very significant experience. In addition, there was one more thing that I felt greatly. This is the importance of understanding not only languages, but also the background of other people, such as culture, environment, and past experiences. Of course, it is difficult to understand everything instantly even when communicating in my native language, but I believe that just being fluent in a language is not enough for true communication. In research presentations, there are situations where you have to explain to people in different research fields, and even if the research fields are the same, there are many cases where the basic knowledge differs just because the research project is different. Therefore, I felt that it is important to be aware of the level of understanding of others during explanation, especially in interdisciplinary research. Also, in my daily research life, as I spend time with international students from various countries, I realized that understanding and respecting the backgrounds of others is very important. I thought that being good at English was "global" when I first joined the NGP, but I think that if you want to be truly global, you need to be receptive and understanding of other people's backgrounds, including their languages. I think I was able to gain this kind of awareness because NGP provides us many situations in which we actively communicate with each other in English, rather than passively.

Unfortunately, due to the outbreak of the COVID-19, I was not able to study abroad. Although I have regrets in this point, I was able to proceed with a difficult experiment that I was trying for the first time under the online guidance of Prof. McLaughlin at University of Wollongong in Australia. At the time, I wanted to analyze sperm microRNAs, but there were steps that did not go well. I decided to look for an online mentor, and with advice from Prof. Osumi, I contacted Prof. McLaughlin, one of the leading experts in the field. She has kindly accepted having regular meetings and discussions, and I have learned a lot from her. Prof. Soubry at KU Leuven in Belgium, a leading researcher in Paternal Origins of Health and Disease (POHaD), which is related to my research theme, also kindly participated in the qualifying exam 2 (QE2) review process. Prof. Soubry came to Japan to participate in the review, but if that had been difficult, I could have had her comments online. It is a great honor to receive review comments from such leading experts, unencumbered by location issues. Before the pandemic of COVID-19, online meetings were not very active even though they were technically possible, but the fact that online interactions have now become so smooth seems to be a great advantage for future international collaborations. In my case, I was not able to study abroad locally, but I realized that we can gain insights and learn from any situation.

I also learned a lot from many other programs, such as participating in the UCL-Tohoku Kick-off Partnership Event, visiting research institutes in London, and in the brain anatomy class. I am sure that each of you will come to NGP with different aspirations, and NGP has a variety of programs and supportive professors and staff. I encourage you to try various things. And although there will be things that go well and things that don't go well, if you don't forget to learn from every situation, I don't think you will have a wasted experience. I am not a great senior student, but I hope that my experiences have been helpful to you.

Finally, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who have guided and supported me in my activities at NGP and in my research activities at the graduate school.