HEERA Matilda Interviews with students in the international program in the School of Advanced Science and Engineering

Department of Life Science and Medical Bioscience, 3rd year undergraduate student

HEERA Matilda

Q

Tell us about your background. What brought you here?

I was born in Trichy, India, and when I was about three months old I moved to Japan and lived in Yokohama for about 12 years and received my education from St. Maur International School. When I was in grade 8, I moved to Bangalore, India, and graduated from an international school there. Japan had made a really big impact on me, and, having lived here for 13 years, I’m pretty comfortable in Japanese, so I decided to come back for undergrad.

I picked Waseda because I liked the undergraduate courses, and the versatility. Also, it’s in the heart of Tokyo, which is a pretty fun place to be, and you can just jump on a train and go anywhere.

Q

What are you studying here?

I’m doing life science and medical bio-science engineering. In Professor Takeda’s lab, right now I’m working on some really exciting developments in synthesis of micro or nanofibers for tissue engineering to develop scaffolds that mimic the highly complex structure of tissues on the micro or nanoscale. To do so the electrospinning technique is used to create fibrous scaffolds that resemble the extracellular matrix to facilitate the development of artificial functional tissues, with the aim of eventually creating artificial organs.

Waseda has a collaboration with Tokyo Women’s Medical University, a joint institute. That’s another reason I wanted to join Waseda in particular. They have these collaborations with other institutions, which is really important for a university to have.

This work has some valuable applications. For example, diabetes can be very damaging to the liver, but not the whole of the liver, just a certain portion. So, by using artificial tissue engineering, we can help mend that particular part, and restore function. In the previous laboratory I took part in, during surgery, where they used to suture, now they’ll be using nano sheets, which is much faster for the doctors to do and has much greater wound healing abilities.

In addition to tissue engineering, other laboratories are working on methods to inhibit cancer progression, and there’s a lot of research related to drug development in the oncology field. In the neuroscience area, a lot of focus is on testing cures for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease on the molecular level.

Q

How do you like working in the lab?

I’ve just started lab rotation, but I’m getting to know everyone and it’s a really friendly and supportive atmosphere. It’s a very international university, and almost all students and professors can converse very well in English.

We had to do a lab course for two years with all the basic techniques. I think that was really important, to give the engineering students training in basic laboratory techniques. That was a benefit of joining the engineering department.

Q

Have you done internships outside the university?

Yes. I spent a year at RIKEN (the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research, Japan’s national research organization), doing animal experimentation and electrophysiological techniques in neuroscience. Now I’m at Johnson and Johnson, working on drug development and acceleration after release.

Q

What’s in the future for you?

Some of the techniques we use in the lab are unique to this university. So I hope I can identify the right people and share the laboratory techniques. For example, electrospinning has yielded the promising results in the tissue engineering field, and the availability of natural and synthetic biomaterials has enabled nanofibrous scaffold synthesis with wide varieties of structures and functions.

After graduating, I want to work in the field of neuroscience and contribute to Japan’s ageing society. In doing so, I want to emphasize skills that Waseda has taught me during my undergrad years.

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