G’day! I’m an Australian that first came to Japan in 1997. Research wise, I first studied plant parasitic nematodes as an undergraduate in the lab of Mike Jones at Murdoch University, Perth, WA. After coming to Japan in 1997, I completed my Masters (1999) and PhD (2002) in the lab of Satoshi Naito, studying plant molecular biology and regulation of amino acid biosynthetic pathways. After that I had the fortunate opportunity to do a post-doc in Rob Martienssen’s lab in Cold Spring Harbor, USA, studying heterochromatin and RNAi in the fission yeast S. pombe. I obtained an independent tenure-track position here in Hokkaido University in December 2007. I was promoted to Associate Professor in 2012 and moved my lab across campus to its current location in the Research Faculty of Agriculture. In November 2013 I also changed back to my original surname of Bartlem, between 2002 and 2013 I published under the name Derek B. Goto.

I’m now a permanent resident of Japan and able to communicate in Japanese well enough to give student lectures, research presentations and organise public outreach programs in Japanese. Sapporo is a fantastic place to both live and visit, and I definitely recommend visiting if you ever get the chance (large city surrounded by lots of nature, nice mild summers, powder snow winters). No matter how long I’m here though, I’ll always need a jar of vegemite close-by!

Australasian Plant Pathology Society
Australian Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology
International Society for Plant-Microbe Interactions
Japan RNA Society (appointed as Internationalisation Officer)
Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Agrochemistry
Japanese Nematological Society
Japanese Society for Plant Cell and Molecular Biology
Japanese Society of Plant-Microbe Interactions
Japanese Society of Plant Physiologists (appointed member of International Committee)
Molecular Biology Society of Japan

2012 ~ : Associate Professor, Research Faculty of Agriculture, Hokkaido Uni, Japan
2012 ~ : Adjunct Professor, School of Biological Sciences and Biotechnology, Murdoch University, Australia
2007: Assistant Professor, CRIS, Hokkaido Uni, Japan
2005: Research Associate, Hokkaido Uni, Japan
2003: Postdoctoral Fellow, Rob Martienssen Lab, Cold Spring Harbor Lab, NY USA
2002: Postdoctoral Fellow, Satoshi Naito Lab, Grad. Sch. Ag., Hokkaido Uni, Japan
2002: Ph.D. (Agricultural Chemistry), Hokkaido Uni, Japan
1999: Master in Agricultural Chemistry, Hokkaido Uni, Japan
1998: B.Sc. Honours (1st Class, Biological Science), Murdoch Uni, Australia
1996: B.Sc. (Biological Science), Murdoch Uni, Australia
1991: High School, Port Hedland, Australia