A paper of my postdoc work was accepted at Scientific Reports. It took too long, but I am happy that it is finally done. In our previous Nature Methods paper, we employed droplet digital PCR (ddPCR) to detect homology-directed repair (HDR). In the accepted paper, we improved the method to detect both HDR and non-homologous end joining (NHEJ) at the same time. By using this method, we systematically measured HDR- and NHEJ-inducing activities of many different genome editing conditions. We found strong nuclease type-, genome locatin-, and cell type-dependencies of genome editing outcomes, which had not been fully known. It is always tough to publish a paper, and always relieving to get it done
It has been pretty busy since I started here, but I enjoy my new role (so far). In Japan, the fiscal year starts in April and ends in March, and our budget is not really flexible. Therefore, I had to use my startup money by early February, and suddenly I cannot purchase anything with that money. I really appreciate private grants free from this restriction that allow me to keep going in February and March. While preparing for experiments in the lab, I am reading books for junior PIs. To manage a lab, to publish, to get funded, and to do good science seem to be an overwhelmingly difficult task, but that is what I have to do now. I appreciate and respect my mentors more now. The books, "At the
