My secondment in Osaka, Japan - Daniel Secker

At the end of last summer, I was lucky enough to get funding for a secondment to Osaka University in Japan. I have found that University of Leeds are encouraging towards secondments and overseas collaborations, and that the CDT program itself is even more so. To back that up, my placement in Osaka was funded through an internal grant scheme that aims to facilitate overseas secondments for early career researchers, and separately the CDT program has a compulsory external placement module - for which I spent 5 months in a collaborating lab in New Zealand, though many of my colleagues have opted for placements/secondments in industry, investing, and even government.

Osaka

During my time in Osaka I learned to use a hydrogel system based on the fibrinogen/thrombin reaction seen in blood clotting. I combined my previous experience of neuronal cell culture in hydrogels with my host’s 3D capillary culture techniques to form 3D neuronal and capillary co-cultures, contributing to ongoing research at Osaka University modelling the blood-brain-barrier. I would say that the project was successful, and I have returned to Leeds with new techniques under my belt, and new ideas for my own research.

Kyoto

Before my secondment I also managed to tie the visit to Japan in with the TERMIS World Congress in Kyoto, the biggest conference in the tissue engineering field, where I presented a poster of my research to date. After my lab work was finished I took a few weeks of holiday, and took the bullet trains as far West as Hiroshima and as far East as Tokyo to see the sights.

Despite the language barrier (which at times was significant!) I was made very welcome in Osaka and made a number of friends I have stayed in touch with, as well as extending my professional network. I was also given chance to try and learn some Japanese myself though to describe it as even passable would be an overstatement. I was given an opportunity to experience Japanese culture in and out of the workplace, which was fascinating, and can only thank my supervisors in Leeds and Osaka for a fantastic experience.