Laboratory life

Bldg. 5 (Nakamura’s office is also on the same floor). Each student has his/her own desk in the student room and comes to the student room first when he/she arrives at school. At their desks, students study, read papers, prepare protocols, move to the laboratory to conduct experiments, eat lunch, and so on.

Most experiments are performed in the Laboratory, but confocal microscopes at the Education and Research Support Center on the third floor are sometimes used.

A lab meeting is held once a week in Nakamura’s office to share the progress of the experiments. Everyone reports on the progress of their research. We try to finish the meeting in one hour even if there are many people. At the meeting, we decide the date and time of the next week’s meeting. We also ask at this time if there are any plans to be absent or leave early before the following week.

The lab seminars are held in both the first and second semesters, and all students give two presentations, one summarizing the results of their research and the other introducing a paper useful for their own research project. They are conducted in English.

If we are unable to discuss the data in the lab meeting or need more time to interpret the data, we hold individual meetings. When experimental data are available, we have meetings via Teams chat and discuss the experimental results.

We don’t have core hours, but I tell the members that they should be reacheable from 9:00 to 17:00 on weekdays. We use Teams software and e-mail for communication.

We encourage students to have time outside of the laboratory for club activities, part-time jobs, etc.