Welcome!

Currently, we focus on several different projects, including biorefinery projects, chromatin projects, and other collaborative projects.

In the first project, we seek to improve the production of renewable bioenergy by discovering novel biomass-degrading enzymes and other key enzymes used by biomass-degrading organisms. Aim 1. By examining cellulosic environmental niches, my laboratory will identify previously uncharacterized cellulolytic microbial communities and characterize their cellulolytic potential. Newly identified microbial communities will be subjected to multi-metaomics analyses to identify key biomass-degrading enzymes [Takasuka et al., Sci. Rep., 2013; Book et al., PLoS biol., 2016; Hori et al., Appl. Environ. Micro., 2020]. Aim 2. Using these metaomics datasets to identify genes and proteins of interest, high throughput functional analysis using gene synthesis and cell-free protein expression will be performed to elucidate the recombinant enzymes' activities toward plant biomass. Aim 3. The phylogenetic analysis will be performed to identify multifunctional biomass-degrading enzymes from the enzyme family of interest such as glycoside hydrolases. Analogous approaches described in Aim 2 will be used to discover biomass-degrading enzymes and proteins with potentially important roles (i.e. Highly expressed genes; Abundant proteins in the meta-environments). In this study, protein engineering approaches will also be attempted to improve biofuels technology [Glasgow et al., J. Mol. Biol., 2019; Glasgow et al., J. Biol. Chem., 2020]. Aim 4. The cellulolytic bacteria have been analyzed for their carbohydrate-responses and novel polysaccharide-responsive transcriptional regulations have been determined [Ohashi et al., Appl. Environ. Micro., 2021]. These transcriptional regulations will be manipulated by the recent advent of genome-editing tools.

The second project, our focus is chromatin structural and functional dynamics in yeast, fly, plant, and human. Currently, We reported in vitro chromatin reconstitution methods, which can be used to understand chromatin dynamics in the eukaryotic nuclei. We reported co-expression chromatin reconstitution method to assemble both human and fly chromatins [Okimune et al., BMC Biotechnol., 2020; Okimune et al., FEBS open bio., 2021]. Furthermore, factors associated with fly chromatin were analyzed biochemically [Endo et al., FEBS open bio, 2021]. More studies are expected to come out shortly.

Other projects: With Prof. Brian Fox (Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA), we have attempted to establish a new method to degrade kelp biomass enzymatically by determining new sets of enzymes. With Prof. Shota Atsumi (Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis, USA), the metabolic pathway of the model bacterium, Escherichia coli, has been engineered to produce value-added materials. There are several other projects that you may find in Other research interests under Research category

News ＆ Updates

2024.10.28 We had a welcome party for two new students. Luckily, everyone in the lab could join, and we enjoyed a hot pot dinner with alcohol. Thanks to all.
2024.10.1 Two new sophomore students, Atsune and Karin, joined the lab. Welcome!! Updated Members.
2024.9.2 Saki (B4) successfully passed her graduate school entrance exam. Congrats!!
2024.8.29 Shogo has returned from the research abroad. I believe Shogo has achieved more than what we expected. Great works!!
2024.6.11 Daisuke (Prof. Kihara in the Department of Biological Sciences and Department of Computer Sciences, Purdue University) visited Sapporo. His big lab has been working on developing a new approach for Cryo-EM high-resolution structural determination by deep learning methods. It has been over 20 years since we met at Purdue, and the meeting was kind of special to me to feel how fast time flies. I look forward to seeing you the next time and to collaborate with you in the near future!
2024.5.15-5.17 Shota (Prof. Atsumi in the Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis) visited Sapporo and gave lectures. We learned important basics and updated biotechnology, especially the production of calory 0 sugars for sweets using metabolic-engineered bacteria.
2024.4.20 Shogo (D2) is leaving to the US (Maeda Lab@University of Wisconsin-Madison) for research abroad, and I hope Shogo will achieve a lot and gain priceless experience with folks in the Maeda Laboratory.
2024.4.1 In the FY2024, we kicked off with the following members: Petra (Postdoc), Keiichi (D3), Shogo (D2), Tatsuya (D1), Sora (M2), Naoki (M2), Taiki (M1), Junko (M1), Saki (B4), and Aiko (B4). It is expected that the FY2024 graduates will be busy, so let's wrap up together.
2024.3.25-27 Tatsuya and Sora will give oral presentation at the 2024 annual meeting of Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology, and Agrochemistry in Tokyo. Good luck!
2024.3.25 The graduation ceremony took place on the Sapporo campus. Petra became Dr. Banko, Tatsuya and Takumi received M.S., and Taiki and Junko received Bachelor's degree. Congrats to all!!
2024.2.5 Master thesis presentation was held for students in the graduate school of global food resources and Tatsuya and Takumi gave their research talk. Congrats!!
2024.1.5 Happy holidays to all. Updated "Current and past lab members". Also, congrats to Petra and Kei-ichi for the acceptance of their collaborative research and updated "Publications".
2023.12.26 A big lab clean up took place. Thank you for all!! Updated "Publications".
2023.12.25 Tatsuya has been selected for the JSPS DC1 fellow. Congrats!!
2023.12.5-8 We attended the annual meeting of The Molecular Biology Society of Japan (Kobe). Eight of us gave poster presentation and received several good feedbacks. Students did great job and I think they all enjoy and learned a lot from the meeting.

2023.11.8 Brian visited us with Karen from the University of Wisconsin-Madison to give several lectures and research discussions. We also had a dinner and enjoy with them. See you in the next year! He was happy to see his scientific grandsons and granddaughters, and I also felt grateful!

2023.11.8 We had a pizza party in the lab to celebrate Vijay's new job in India and we also welcomed Aiko and Saki as a new addition to our group. Vijay will start a new position as an Assistant Professor (PI) as soon as he arrives in India. Congrats Vijay!!

2023.10.2 We welcomed two new students, Aiko Matsumoto and Saki Mitsumasu, sophomore in Applied Biosciences. Welcome! Updated "Members"
2023.9.8 We had an annual joint lab meeting with Uehara lab and 14 folks gave research talk. After rigorous discussion, we enjoyed BBQ (again).
2023.7.27 We enjoyed a lab BBQ to have some fun and continued until the late night. I hope everyone enjoyed

2023.7.5 Updated "Publication".
2023.6.19 Vijay, Tatsuya, Sora, Naoki, and myself went for microbe sampling at Tomakomai forrest. The weather was good and we enjoyed activity. Thanks to Vijay and Sora for their special effort. Samples will be further isolated and we hope some new species with unique functions are there!

2023.5.19 Prof. Shota Atsumi visited our lab and gave lectures in the Graduate School of Global Food Resources. We also had active research discussion!!
2023.4.25 Updated "Publications", "Patents and Grants" and "Members".
2023.3.20 Updated "Publications".
2023.2.10 Three students successfully performed their master thesis presentations. Congrats all. Keito and Kaho will start working in companies, and Shogo will continue his research for Ph.D.
2023.1.29 Updated "Publications" and "Patents".
2022.11.29 We will attend the 45th Annual Meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan in Chiba, and Petra, Keiichi, Tatsuya, Sora, and Naoki will give a poster presentation. Wish all to have some fun and excitement!
2022.11.12-19 Prof. Brian Fox from the University of Wisconsin -Maidson visited us and shared several activities, including a research discussion!! It's been 3 years since the previous visit, and we (with Keisuke!!) had a good time celebrating the reunion.

2022.6.21 Two sophomore students in the Department of Bioscience, Junko Haga and Taiki Azuma, are new addition in the lab. Welcome!
2022.4.18 Dr. Vijay Kumar joined our group. He will work on the project entitled "Consolidated bioconversion of cellulosic biomass to PHAs by one cell factory" as a JSPS PD for the next two years. Welcome to join our lab Vijay!
2022.4.1 Updated "Members"
2022.3.24 Keisuke (With Ph.D.), Keiichi (With M.S.), Akane (With M.S.), Tatsuya (With B.S.), and Takumi (B.S.) graduated today, and Keisuke and Akane will be departing from our lab. Congratulations to all!!

2022.2.9 Keiichi and Akane successfully defended their M.S. Congrats!!
2022.1.31 Keisuke gave his doctral presentation, and fulfilled all the requirements for Ph.D. He still wants to wrap up few projects before departure.
2022.1.31 Shogo was chosen one of the three fellows of Hokudai-Hitachi collaborative program, which will support entire doctral study. Congratulations Shogo!
2022.1.7 Updated "Publications"
2021.11.8 Updated "Members"
2021.9.27 Two big news! Keiichi was chosen for the 2022 JSPS DC1. Also, his paper entitled "histone chaperone-mediated co-expression assembly of tetrasome and nucleosome" has been accepted!! Many congrats Keiichi!!
2021.7.27 We welcomed two new students, Naoki Hayashi and Sora Fukui, sophomore in Applied Biosciences. Welcome!
2021.5.5 Updated "Publications". It took us sometime to wrap up but finally and successfully published. During the preparation of this study, Keisuke had gained knowledge and experience of biochemistry, microbiology, omics analysis, and other important techniques!! There are several more projects to go before his departure from our lab.
2021.4.21 Updated "Publications".
2021.4.5 New semester started! We welcome a new master student, Kaho Yamashita, and updated "Members". 2021.3.25 Congratulations on your graduation (Kanako with M.S., Shogo and Keito with B.S.)! Best wishes for Kanako's next future! Lets make something happen=>Shogo & Keito in the next two years during graduate study!! 2021.3.19-20 Keisuke, Keiichi, and Akane gave oral presentation at the Annual Meeting of the Japan Society for Bioscience, Biotechnology and Agrochemistry. Good job all! 2021.2.10 Congrats Kanako for the completion of M.S.! Kanako ended up doing pretty well. And we are very happy to see your accomplishment!! 2020.12.23 Kaho and Petra gave a presentation in our regular lab meeting, which is the last one in 2020. Happy Holidays to all!! 2020.12.09 Here is a current lab meeting style. Everyone wears a mask and distant each other. Also see updated members&publications.

2020.12.7 We all welcome Petra to join our lab!!
2020.12.2-4 Kei-ichi gave a poster presentation at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Molecular Biology Society of Japan entitled "Reconstitution of Drosophila and human chromatin by wheat germ cell-free co-expression system".
2020.11.19 Just heard a great news from Shozo and he passed Ph.D. defense today. Congrats Dr. Oita!!
2020.11.10 Started our lab meeting today.
2020.11.10 The paper led Kei-ichi got accepted today (see updated Publications). Congrats!! In this study, we reported the novel method to reconstitute both fly and human chromatins (on circular DNA). This study was collaborative research with Dr. Nagy at Semmelweis University, Hungary, who worked in the lab as JSPS-Postdoc.
2020.11.1 Updated "Publications".
2020.10.1 Updated "Lab Members".
2020.9.4 Three lab members passed the entrance exam in graduate school. Shogo, Keito, and Kaho, nice job!!
2020.8.27 We had a kick-off meeting of the project "Enzymatic conversion of kelp biomass for biofuels and health beneficial products." with Drs. Brian Fox, Hosokawa (Marcy), and Kurihara (Hide).
2020.8.25 Received official letter from the JSPS regarding R2 JSPS Postdoctral Fellowship for Overseas Researchers. Congrats Vijay! Hopefully, we can start working soon.
2020.8.14 We welcomed two new lab members, Shimazu kun and Nagano kun (BC3). We will decide on the projects sometime in September.
2020.5.1 Updated "Patents and Grants".
2020.4.1 The new fiscal year has started as of today. We welcomed a new student Ms. Kanako Ushirogata. Updated "Members"
2020.3.25 Unfortunately, the graduation ceremony was canceled today, but I would like to congrats both Akane and Kei-ichi who completed their B.S! From April, they will enter the graduate school, and hope we all will enjoy and establish something good!
2020.3.15 Ms. Petra Bank is officially accepted as a Ph.D student. She will start working with us this September, if the situation gets better. We all hope so.
2020.3.12 Updated "Publications".
2020.2.12Kazuki has completed his M.S. degree. The master's thesis presentation in English was an excellent presentation, and also I was happy to see a wonderful 40-page master's thesis in English. It was a little quick for three years, but I am grateful. I sincerely hope that there will be much more happiness in your long life. Please come and stop by in the future!
2019.12.26 Ms. Wakana Sato stopped by the office and gave me some updates. After Wakana completed her bachelor here in Sapporo, she moved to the U.S. to continue her research career in the graduate school at the University of Minnesota. I look forward to hearing more stories in the future from you, and good luck with everything! 2019.12.23 We celebrated the last week of 2019 with Dr. Takeda's lab and two guest students from the Lab of Mol Biol. Overall, we had a good year, and hopefully 2020 will be a fruitful year for us all.

2019.12.3-12.7 Kazuki, Akane, Kei-ichi, and Takasuka attended the 42nd MBSJ meeting in Fukuoka. Kazuki presented a poster entitled "Development of epigenetic enzyme screening method using in vitro reconsituted Drosophila nucleosome.", Akane gave also a poster presentation entitled "Molecular mechanisms of a novel xylan-responsive transcriptional regulator in the cellulolytic Streptomyces sp. SirexAA-E.", and Kei-ichi presented a poster of "Development of epigenetic enzyme screening using in vitro reconstituted human chromatin.".

2019.11.13 Prof. Brian Fox stayed for a week with us, and all lab members welcomed him at Izakaya. Everyone seemed very happy there!!

2019.10.28 Updated the page of Lab members.
2019.9.29 Mr. Shuzo Oita, Ph.D student at the University of Arizona, visited the lab. He was almost an initial lab member and greatly contributed to the lab setup. Always exciting to meet you, Shuzo! I look forward to hearing from your completion of Ph.D soon!
2019.9.19 We had a farewell dinner. Petra, see you again and all for the best!!

2019.8.28-8.30 Takasuka attended the JST Innovation Japan 2019, and gave poster presentation.
2019.8.6 The joint lab meeting/Hungary-Japan special seminar took place. Around 10 speakers gave a sweet talk on their research, and I was grateful to see everyone's improvement. Good job Keisuke, Kazuki, Akane, and Kei-ichi for your talk!! After the meeting, we enjoyed BBQ party.

2019.8.3-8.19 Dr. Nagy Szilvia visited the lab to do some experiments. I hope we will get lots of good data! She is always very energetic.
2019.8.2 Ms. Nang Naunge completed her master defense. Congrats. Her next stop will be continue graduate study for Ph.D. Good luck!
2019.7.25 We attended the International symposium on biodiversity in the global food system at Sapporo. Keisuke and Kazuki gave a poster presentation, and Keisuke won the best poster award. Congrats Keisuke!
2019.7.24 We welcome new lab members, Mr. Hataya and Sasaki (both BC3) from the department of Applied bioscience. We will update their info sometime in September.
2019.7.17-7.25 Prof. Atsumi from UC Davis visited us. He taught several classes and also we had fruitful discussion about our collaboration.
2019.6.20- Ms. Petra Banko joined the lab as an exchange student from Hungary. Back in Hungary, she works with Dr. Nagy Szilvia, and Petra will work on the project of protein kinase and ubiquitinase enzymes.
2019.6.17-6.20 Dr. Yoshikuni from the US-DOE, Joint Genome institute visited our lab. He has also been a faculty member at Hokkaido U Gi-CoRE, and we will (hopefully) soon start research collaboration.
2019.4.1 The fiscal year H31 started as of today. We welcomed a new research student Ms. Luo. Let's make our laboratory pleasant, and productive.
2019.3.25 Keisuke and Riho completed their master's and bachelor's degrees. Keisuke will stay in the lab to pursue his Ph.D, and Riho will work in the company. Congratulations to both of you!
2018.10.23 We held welcome party for Akane and Kei-ichi.

2018.10.12 Another great news from our lab. Keisuke was awarded the JSPS DC1 fellowship!! Congrats Kei and keep going!!
2018.10.1 We welcomed two new undergraduate students, Akane Nakata and Kei-ichi Okimune (see current members). Akane's project will be a genome-editing of our cellulolytic bacteria for industrial use, and Kei-ichi will focus on the method development using the in vitro chromatin reconstitution for epigenetic enzyme screening.
2018.8.10 We are very proud of Dr. Nagy who was just offered a prestigious Hungarian grant, and she will start the new project as a PI at Semmelweis University, Hungary after December 2018. Our lab and her group in Hungary will collaborate several research projects closely!! Congrats Szilvia!!
2018.8 - 2018.9 Takasuka spent all summer in the Prof. Fox lab, Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin -Madison to push forward several collaborative projects.
2018.7.13 Takasuka gave an invited talk at Cellulase Meeting, Nagano
2018.6.20 - 7.2 Takasuka and Kazuki visited Denmark for overseas fieldwork.
2018.4.14 Takasuka was nominated as 2018 grant recipients of Inamori Foundation.
2018.4.1 New fiscal year started! Now our lab members are as follows, Postdoc Szilvia, MC2 Keisuke, MC2 Naunge, MC1 Kazuki, and BC4 Riho. We will aim for higher!!
2018.2.21 Natsumi and Kazuki successfully passed their bachelor defense. Both of them gave a good talk, and nicely hundled questions. Congrats!! Natsumi will start a new job at Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, and Kazuki will continue his research in the graduate school. They are our official first students, and overall I really appreciated their great contributions in the lab.
2018.2.5-2.6 We launched the international symposium. Keisuke gave a poster presentation, and Takasuka gave a talk. More detailed info at Gi-CORE GSF site.
2017.12.6-12.9 Szilvia, Keisuke, and Kazuki presented their projects at the Consortium of Biological Sciences (Conbio) 2017, Kobe, and Takasuka attended the Collaboration seminar on career path for young researchers as a panelist. Well done everyone!
2017.10.25 Added a new publication. Congrats Keisuke!!
2017.10.1 Ms. Riho Suzuki and Naunge Nang (from Myanmar) joined as new lab members. Welcome back Riho, and welcome Naunge!
2017.8.29 Takasuka gave an invited talk entitled "Omics and genome-enabled technology to understand phylogenetic-based enzyme functions" at the 2017 Joint conference of the societies for environmental microbiology, Sendai Japan.
2017.8-2017.9 Takasuka spent summer in the US department of energy - Joint Genome Institute, Walnut creek CA, to create new research collaborations. Takasuka also visited Prof. Shota Atsumi at Department of Chemistry, University of California, Davis to discuss our research.
2017.4.1 We have two new lab members, Dr. Szilvia K. Nagy from Hungary (JSPS fellow) and new graduate student, Mr. Keisuke Ohashi. Welcome!!
2017.2.8 Added a new publication entitled "Optimization of simultaneous saccharification and fermentation conditions with amphipathic lignin derivatives for concentrated bioethanol production" Bioresour Technol. This study was collaboration with Prof. Uraki's group, and led by Dr. Cheng. Congrats Cheng!
2016.12-2017.3 Takasuka conducted a research in the Prof. Fox lab, Department of Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin -Madison, as a honorary fellow.
2016.10.15 Two new lab members, Ms. Natsumi Kato and Mr. Kazuki Matsumoto, joined in the lab. Welcome you two!
2016.6.1 Added a new publication entitled "Evolution of High Cellulolytic Activity in Symbiotic Streptomyces through selection of expanded gene contents" PLoS Biol.
2016.5.12 Ben did successfully defended today at U Wisconsin -Madison. Congratulations Dr. Minkoff!!
2016.4.1 Song Ruop joined our lab from Nankai University, China. Welcome! He will be focusing on studying the cellulolytic fungi isolated from the woodwasp for their biomass-degrading activity as well as proteome.
2016.3.21 - 3.24 Takasuka attended the US Department of Energy User Meeting at California.
2016.3.3 - 3.4 Takasuka attended the research collaboration meeting at Kyoto University, and gave a poster presentation entitled "Characterization of lignin degradation by fungal and bacterial enzymes from wood devastating insect symbionts".
2016.2.20 Publication list was updated.
2016.1.31 - 2.26 Our research collaborator, Dr. James Ellinger from the University of Tokyo joined our team!!
2015.11.21 - 11.25 Professor Cameron Currie (http://currielab.wisc.edu) from University of Wisconsin - Madison visited our lab, and he gave a talk entitled "Overview of insect-microbe symbionts in natural ecosystem".
2015.7.3 Professor Daisuke Kihara (http://kiharalab.org) from Purdue University visited our lab, and he gave a talk entitled "Predicting gene functions in biological contexts".
2015.8.21 After a summer of fun research Ben, Wike and Richard returned safely to their home countries!
2015. 6.25 Takasuka chaired the session "Genome enabled approaches for comprehensive understanding of life" and gave a presentation entitled "Genome-enabled discovery of biomass-degrading enzymes for bioenergy production" at the Annual Meeting of the Protein Science Society of Japan.
2015.6.18 Ben Minkoff from the University of Wisconsin-Madison joins the lab via the NSF-EAPSI program, and Richard Precious from Nigeria joins via HUSTEP.
2015.4.15 Wike Zahra from Indonesia joins the lab via the Hokkaido University Short-Term Exchange Program (HUSTEP)
2015.3.22 Professor Takasuka joined the US Department of Energy User meeting at California.
2015.3.21 Dr. Ellinger left the lab to start a faculty position in the Active Learning of English for Science Students (ALESS) program at the University of Tokyo. Check out professor Ellinger's new homepage!.
2015.1.7 Dr. James Ellinger visits the lab for 3 months.
2014.11.4 The Takasuka lab opens at Hokkaido University!