Q: What is your current research topic?

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We are developing a technology to speed up breeding by applying fish surrogacy techniques. Specifically, we are working on research to have ultra-precocious rainbow trout, which mature in just six months, produce sperm from king salmon, which normally take four to six years to mature.
The background to this is the fact that the demand for seafood is currently increasing worldwide, and if this trend continues, overfishing will lead to a decline in natural resources. As a result, full-scale aquaculture is attracting attention as a way to ensure a stable supply of seafood.
Full-scale aquaculture is a cycle in which artificially hatched larvae are raised to parent fish, and then eggs are taken from the parent fish to create the next generation. This cycle is completely controlled by human hands, without relying on natural seedlings. However, full-scale aquaculture has problems such as many fish species being difficult to raise and the costs of feeding and raising them. To solve these problems, attention is being paid to breeding fish that are resistant to disease, grow quickly, and are delicious to eat.
Specifically, selective breeding is a technique that produces a population with the desired characteristics by repeatedly selecting and breeding fish with advantages such as delicious taste or fast growth over many generations. However, many farmed fish species take 2 to 5 years to reach maturity, which prevents the acceleration of selective breeding. Methods to shorten this generation time include controlling temperature and light conditions and administering hormones, which can produce individuals that mature quickly, but it is still not possible to significantly advance the maturity date.
Therefore, in the laboratory to which I belong, we developed a new technique called the surrogate parent technique as a technique to shorten the generation time. The surrogate parent technique is a technique in which reproductive stem cells, which are the source of eggs and sperm of a donor species, are transplanted into a related species, and the next generation derived from the donor is created from the surrogate parent. By applying this technique, sperm and eggs of fish that take a long time to mature can be produced in fish that mature in a shorter time, making it possible to shorten the generation time in breeding. However, it still takes one or two years to mature. Therefore, the theme of this research is to create a super-precocious fish that matures in a short period of six months, and use it as a dedicated host for the surrogate parent technique to construct a new rapid breeding method, which is a method to promote breeding. Data has already been obtained, and we have succeeded in obtaining sperm from king salmon, which take four to six years to mature, in just six months. If this technology is applied to breeding, it is expected that the time it took to create a new cultivated variety, which previously took nearly 1 years, can be shortened to just a few years, and that it will be possible to create cultivated varieties dramatically faster.

Q: What motivated you to start your research?

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I enjoyed the classes and practical training in the laboratory of Professor Goro Yoshizaki, who established the surrogate parent fish technique, and was attracted to the creativity of using the physiological functions of various fish and combining these functions to create new technologies, so I joined the laboratory. Professor Yoshizaki gave me this theme, and that's what got me started on this research.

Q: What is interesting about your research?

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As I try to solve problems with uncertain results using wisdom and ingenuity through