 Hello everyone and hello to Ken Yoshida. Thank you very much for being here today. Ken Yoshida is Professor of Applied Microbiology at the Department of Science, Technology and Innovation at Kobe University in Japan and since 2019 he's also a FEMS Ambassador for Japan. I'm very happy to have Ken here with us. Thank you for joining us and I would just like to start with a short icebreaker and ask what got you excited as a kid about microbiology? Yes, I don't point to exact time but I was mesmerized by microscope. Actually this is one of the most important part of my life because it seems like a clear water but under the microscope I can see a lot of things are moving in there so I was so shocked even this clear water contains such small organisms so then I decided to walk someday to research all those invisible organisms. Amazing, amazing. I see a resemblance with Antonin Vallevanova who was the first to see an organism and for us being at Delft we think we know about this and we think about this. Yeah indeed. Tell us a little bit about your current area of research. How do you think it can help solve current societal problems or issues? All right it's a good question. As introduced I am working as a professor of applied microbiology so it means nowadays we use microbes as a kind of cell factory to produce a lot of chemicals covering a wide range of like from fuels to materials. Okay so actually this action in science can change the world from petroleum or oil-based society into biomass-based society so microbes is a very important element to make this a shift of society. To do that we have to change the metabolism or whatever the genetic information in the microbes so that's why we have to develop new technology in genetic manipulation. So these things are our one of the focus in the laboratory and sooner or later it can be implemented to the reality society to produce chemicals using biotechnology especially microbes. Okay well we are talking now online instead of in person because obviously there is the current COVID-19 crisis and we just changed our life quite massively recently and I just wanted to ask you what do you think that this current COVID-19 pandemic thought us about how the scientific community can respond to a crisis? Yeah this is a very touching question. Actually now ordinary people understand importance of microbiology but to be honest virus is not a microorganisms but this is related to all those invisible things to have the capacity to infect our body and we scientists try to you know or let them understand what is the main problem with viruses and all things and also we proposed the how we can you know fight against all those toxic things and some people do understand the meaning and also the importance however the other part of society just afraid of being infected and they got to be panic and I think we need to develop more good education to let them understand and they accept how they have to behave and all the thing is one of the turning point of our society to realize the importance of microbiology. This is a big impact on our scientific society especially people working in microorganisms and microbiology and also the other hand we scientists that propose the many new approach to solve this pandemic problem and even me I propose the possible development of treatment but people all the time have a kind of allergy about this kind of far-advanced technology and especially GMO things is really social allergic so unfortunately all those clever idea cannot be implemented and again all those education can help us to make the things much is rapidly on the speedy to be implemented. So you seem to suggest kind of a double approach in a way so first of all research needs to continue basic research for people to understand for scientists to understand like in this case the theology of the virus and develop new course but also as importantly like proper communication so that everyone understand the risk and don't panic for example and they can be able to understand and react accordingly. Yes exactly so I think people do not know the meaning of words even so vaccination and also or both things people don't understand what is the difference of all those things and I think education is required in the both side as for the developed things and also the basic things and we need to have a kind of matching point to have the social and also or ordinarily understanding in the society so that's very important without this kind of social panic about this people do not realize the importance of those things. Because you mentioned also education one question I wanted to ask you is about early career scientists. You have been awarded the prize for encouragement of young scientists in 2002 by the Japan Society for Bioscience Bioscience Biotechnology and Agrochemistry. I would be interested what is your approach to support early career scientists? This is a very delicate question well especially probably in Japan our younger generation is a kind of timid and they sometimes try to be hidden and they are afraid of being exposed sometimes. But on the other hand the other group is all the time try to be all the time animated and also try to show up for themselves and this kind of two groups is all the time in a kind of fight or like a tug of war and as a PI we can see this kind of two different personalities even one person has these two personalities and we try to or extract the good aspect of these two different personalities in the groups or in one person and try to make the balancing of so if they need it they can show up ever if they don't like they just be hidden so this kind of balance is very difficult and that is why I think the younger generation requires good mentoring and also like a guidance so sometimes we have a kind of a systematic organization to help them to you know make this balancing like without showing their ability people do not know what they what she can do but if they they're pretty much afraid to do that we have to encourage them so like this way and not only the realistic or scientific ability but also this kind of personality is also trained and also let's say encouraged yeah so in this way I'm all the time keep an attention about these to put these points as well yeah so it seems like a personalized approach in a way in which you try to to to encourage the best of your students and and try to elevate the best the best quality state they already have or maybe they just they need encouragement to to bring forward yes to be honest as for the scientific quality of their works can be accomplished by themselves you know this is a really elementary you know it's a they have to do that that even they have good things a good to see is sometimes they do not know how to show it up so then in this case we can be a good mentor to tell them how they can make it more you know obvious or easily to be recognized so in this case like as for the realistic scientific approach it's the requirement to be a good scientist but people are sometimes timid or they do not know how to show them up so in this case our you know help is quite an effective so far I have been experiencing in this kind of things and do you think there is these approaches that you're outlining are different in in in Japan versus the rest of the world or is a is a common trait of scientists that they need not just to be good scientists but also be able to present effectively or to convey the message effectively yeah to be honest I think uh probably in general uh aspect things are not that different however I can see the difference in the basic education in Japan in Europe is quite different you know so in Japan we all the time saying if somebody is outstanding then the other try to kick him out okay but in Europe like somebody is very good people try to encourage them okay so this kind of social attitude is a bit different in this case I think we try to use or we try to import the weight of European people do as for all those talented people yeah in general I have a kind of impression in Japan try to equalize everything too much to equalize so if somebody is too good they say that they try to you know kick him out or try to reduce his ability so this is quite different but nowadays we're changing a bit and but yet this is traditionally hidden in Japanese culture I think so I can the point this difference that's very interesting very interesting and thinking more a little bit more globally now and not just the situation in Japan versus the rest of the world what do you think our challenges today to support a recovery scientist and artist challenges different in comparison to the past and one might be further challenges in the future to support a recovery scientist or for a career scientist to be established and have a career in science probably every year on the earth like a post new post for younger generation is quite limited and like even the postdocs used to be we can enjoy a lot of postdocs in the laboratory but because of the budget limitation we have to reduce the number of postdocs and so then automatically to get a position is very competitive and some of the very talented students they just quit on the way of research and they try to find their job in the companies because the wage is better and also they can enjoy more promising parts effective in companies so now probably not only Japan but also in Europe but also it's very difficult to find a good position or promising positions for younger generation that's a very very big issue and I think we need to think about generating the new positions for younger generation and or otherwise we lose our successors in the scientific activity so I think this is the most important issue at this moment every year so it seems to me that you're saying that also collaborations probably need to be also very very much important in the future and it actually it's been pretty much recommended to have international collaboration like now I'm applying one of the Horizon 2020 program which is naming a Japanese colleague has to be involved in okay in this way even the EU or government is trying to stimulate the collaboration between EU and Japan but it's not only Japan but also Korea or Singapore or anywhere it's a European side try to you know stimulate European colleagues to find a third party or third countries in increasing Japan and this is a good way of thinking like to have a better chance of collaboration that's very interesting then I will jump to a question which was a bit far ahead in the list but it seems like a very nice segue which is since you are FEMS ambassador for Japan what do you think is the best way to build bridges and collaboration between Japan science and the rest of the world there could be two ways to make this encouragement of this kind of bridging of the different countries and regions one is so we have to exchange younger generation in a certain time of certain time like at least one year or a couple of years to exchange all those younger generation because through the exchanging we can have a better understanding of the difference and the similarity and also in a scientific way we can exchange the materials and also the technologies that this is very very effective to have a tight bridge actually me myself was staying in France and at the moment I established a lot of communication and also friendships and also exchange the technical things and this is yet now I'm enjoying this situation so this kind of human resource exchange is one of the things and the other things as I told you like governmental or international encouragement in a collaboration these kind of things cannot be done only by the conferences and also just having a chat you know so this is more sustainable and also a substantial exchange can be done only by these two ways of support human resource exchange and also governmental support for the collaborative research thank you another question which is related is about the fact that scientists are really truly globetrotters they travel often to conferences whenever possible of course now it is not not the case but they also relocate often during their career to different countries like you did for a postdoc in France how important do you think it is for science to be international rather than be done in separately in different country I can't catch your question and you meant like to make a travel and or this online is to compare the two things or no I meant because we were talking about the fact that scientists needs to to travel and and and this is important to establish collaboration with scientists with colleagues and these also need to be supported by by agencies so that this is possible um so my question was um how important do you think it is for science to be international you mean uh we can't do a good science only depending upon international collaboration or not so these are things on Japanese side actually government try to stimulate us to have a better international collaboration because they made some calculation like or the um evaluation of the papers and they found it out uh international collaboration and the good citation is correlating to each other so that's why Japanese government is now trying to convince us to have better international collaborations or more international collaborations okay this is just the uh the calculation or those are statics uh ever from my point of view international collaboration can help students to improve their thinking way more globally and actually sometimes for example in one region one uh bacteria or one technology was pretty much too regarded and people never ever discard this ever using the chance of international collaboration we found it out so far we believed this one is the best that we can have another choice in the other place okay in this way we can switch the kind of the too much established knowledge or too much as a knowledge of notion can be changed because of this new idea coming from collaboration okay in this way uh we can improve our uh too much prejudice although those things and uh international collaboration can make a breakthrough of all those previous knowledge or like a sort of belief can be completely changed by this and in this way not only the you know evaluation of papers and all things but also this kind of uh big change of the thinking way as all the time we can enjoy from the international population so um i try to convince my students in the latter way of thinking way to enjoy international population so it seems to me you're saying that there is still differences in from country to country now science is done for for whatever reason and that uh international collaboration and traveling and and exchanges help to to equalize science and to advance it because then you can you can jointly find the better the better maybe technique or the best solution or the best results so for me also maybe a personal question because i've never been to japan will be what are in your opinion the difference on how science is done in japan versus the rest of the world do you see me or or maybe too much a broad question um i think i would not be the best person to answer this question because i'm pretty much already europeanized i think so and ever yeah of course the society is quite different like a hierarchy of a structure of every single institute is quite different from european way and uh students are very polite to pis and also all those position holiday holders and every single students in japan has to pay tuition and in europe and the many countries people can learn flee even though they are working in the laboratory they can be paid but in japan every single student has to pay to to learn by themselves that is a big difference is student even during doing research yes yes a ph this isn't how to pay tuition this is a basic however they can have scholarship so it can be common goal so then it can be qualified however they do not have any benefit so this is a big difference this is a comical or social reason actually in japan students are thought to pay for their learning so this is traditional way and only tip of iceberg very very talented student can enjoy free learning you know so this qualification is very tough and only a limited number of students can enjoy this and this is very different and um not only for that like uh even a carrier position holders researchers is also are quite different from the european way and people cannot change the position so easily in europe quite frequently people can switch from one place to another right but in japan if you change the position from one institute another it means a kind of big change in the life so this is in the reality the big difference yeah okay for me this is very interesting because at least the way i know it from a limited perspective is that in europe um it's very much encouraged to change institute for example when you speak from master to phd or from phd to postdoc yeah but yet we are still changing and some university try to convince all those researchers has to move out and once at least then if they can be trained enough they can have other possibility to apply back into their his or her original institute or so this they have some university has this system but most of the universities or most of the institute has a tendency to keep the original or member to have a kind of escalator system to stay on there so we are still in the mixture of these situations so it can be also common that a scientist in japan will do a phd postdoc and then get tenure at the same institute yes and actually it's been recommended to be our assistant professor for example so we use the tenure system nowadays so like five years time they can be evaluated and once they are successful they can stay like a tenure forever but this is quite recent used to be we do not have this so like once you are assigned as assistant professor so you can have a permanent position there so but people now change it especially younger generation so younger generation is now suffering from very hard time to find the stable stabilized situation in in the research and this is uh yeah they say like they stimulate a competition to have a better ability or better science uh well but this is just provoking higher more and more competitions but sooner or later only a qualified scientist can survive in the end and one way to for scientists and for early career scientists to to showcase their work and to to get feedbacks quality feedbacks from other researchers is going to conferences and of course now is is a bit different because we are having an online conference but it's still very important to to collaborate and to get feedbacks also during this time of course and for many early career scientists this FEMS conference will be the first their first conference what advice will you have for young scientists starting their scientific career in particular we regard to going to conferences I think this online conference is a good opportunity for younger generation to acquire the a lot of keywords and also people who specialize in specific field and then by watching their presentation I think they can work with their non-computer to find out another research by themselves and so I think they can minimize time to catch up the latest or newest things and not only listening to our presentation and the whole but also they can use their computer freely and this is a part of the advantage for them to enjoy this online conference and another thing is well nowadays we have to take care of all those for example handicapped people handicapped people is not easy to travel long distance but by using this opportunity all those who are handicapped can enjoy these things in life and I think even solving this problem of pandemic I think we should continue this online because this can be really a border free for people or who is working in science and not only physical and they can enjoy or the latest news and information so I think in this way online conference can be usable later on I think so this is definitely a positive side of online conference that they can be more inclusive also for scientists that cannot travel extensively or maybe also because of cost or also because of time constraint and I think it's a very good way to finish the interview with this note because we are now in an online conference and I wanted to thank you very much for your feedback and for agreeing to be at this interview I just wanted to remind that the talk is going to be in one hour and a half at 4pm at the session two and the talk is about application of the Grand Positive Conjugative Plasmid PLS-20 for rapid rapid and easy transformation of intra and interspecies thank you so much for being here and I wish you a very pleasant and successful online conference thank you very much I hope that people can enjoy my presentation then thank you again bye bye bye thanks