Animal Genome Institute

Yuka has more than 20 years of experience in genomics and bioinformatics in both academic and private research institutions (representative papers: Neuron 2009 (PMID: 19477152), PNAS 2011 (PMID: 21368140), Nature 2011 (PMID: 22031440), Science 2018 (PMID: 30545854), Nature Neuroscience 2020 (PMID: 32203497). Being raised on a farm in rural Japan, she has a long-time passion for bettering animal lives and agricultural productivity utilizing her expertise in genomics and bioinformatics and founded Animal Genome Institute (AGI) in 2019. Yuka is trying to support and educate anyone who loves animals and science. For her daytime job, she has spent 9+ years as a faculty member at Penn State University College of Medicine. Now, she enjoys a new role as a bioinformatics scientist at a private company where she works on biomarker science by utilizing machine learning.

Milena is a leading investigator of immunology, now appointed as an Associate Professor at University of Massachusetts Medical School, with a great interest in understanding how coordinated efforts of enteric immune and nervous systems maintain intestinal homeostasis and infection control, and how the dysbiosis in each system may lead to the development of inflammatory gut conditions such as Inflammatory Bowel Diseases (IBD) and Irritable Bowel Syndrome (IBS). She has been a collaborator and a friend of Yuka since she worked as an Assistant Professor at Penn State University College of Medicine and their collaborative paper was recently published in Science Immunology (PMID: 32276965).

Tomoko is an Assistant Professor at Laboratory of Veterinary Radiology, Department of Veterinary Medicine, College of Bioresource Sciences, Nihon University, Japan. Her interest is in radiation therapy for the cancer of cats and dogs. She is also a member of the Veterinary Cancer Society. Not only Tomoko is specialized in cancer therapy in cats and dogs, she sees a broad spectrum of complications in veterinary medicine, including IBD.

Kazuki is a researcher of comparative oncology and translational research, appointed as an Assistant Professor at Gifu University, Japan. His research interest is focused on developing novel therapeutic agents and low-invasive biomarkers using miRNAs for human/canine osteosarcoma (PMID: 30683101) and hemangiosarcoma (PMID: 28536479, PMID: 26335793). Kazuki is a collaborator of Yuka, and fully supports her activities.