Ms. Chie Kodama, a second-year master's student of the Laboratory of Integrated Biology in the Department of Integrated Biosciences, received the Outstanding Poster Award at the 1^st Conference of the Japan Mendel Society held on June 15, 2024.

Awardee: Chie Kodama
Supervisor: Professor Sachihiro Matsunaga
Presentation Title: Approaches to Endosymbiosis with Cultured Animal Cells and Microalgae
Name of Conference: The 1^st Conference of the Japan Mendel Society
Presentation Location and Date: October 15 at Japan Women's University

This experiment was conducted to construct a quasi-endosymbiosis system that incorporates microalgae in cultured human cells to produce an artificial secondary endosymbiosis. Ms. Kodama succeeded in efficiently incorporating microalgae into human cultured cells by depleting essential amino acids in the culture medium.

Message from Awardee:

I truly appreciate the Japan Mendel Society for recognizing my attempt and the result of reproducing a secondary symbiosis that occurred in ancient times. I want to express my sincere appreciation and thanks to Professor Matsunaga and those who supported me. I will continue to make even greater efforts in order that I may deserve this honor.