Sachiko Toma-Fukai: The Plant Cell First Author

Sachiko Toma-Fukai, first author of “Structural insight into the activation of an Arabidopsis organellar C-to-U RNA editing enzyme by active site complementation”

Current Position: Associate professor of NARA Institute of Science and Technology, Japan

Education: PhD (Science) at Osaka University, Japan

Non-scientific Interests: Reading

Brief bio:

My research field is structural biology. I started a study of structural biology as a student at Ochanomizu University in Japan. After receiving my degree of master, I entered the Graduate School of Science at Osaka University in Japan to learn more about the X-ray crystallography of biological macromolecules. I got mentorship from Prof. Atsushi Nakagawa and determined the luciferase (aequorin) structure by collaborating with Dr. Osamu Shimomura.

In the third grade of my Ph.D. course student, I left the university and worked as an assistant professor with Prof. Yuriko Yamagata at the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at Kumamoto University in Japan, and started the structural biology of signaling proteins relating to diseases.

After receiving my Ph.D. (Science) at Osaka University in 2006, I moved to the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Tokyo as an assistant professor and worked with Prof. Yoshinori Satow and Prof. Toshiyuki Shimizu.

In 2018, I moved to the Graduate school of Science and Technology, NARA Institute of Science and Technology in Japan and worked as an associate professor. Recently, I have been interested in the molecular mechanism of post-translational or post-transcriptional modifications of proteins relating to diseases and intend to propose a therapeutic strategy from the viewpoint of structural biology.