Shinya Yamanaka Interview (page: 2 / 6) Embryonic Stem Cell Research	Print Interview

Dr. Yamanaka, many of the scientists we've spoken with say that failure is the biggest teacher. Have you experienced that in your career?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Shinya Yamanaka: I was an orthopedic surgeon, and my first failure was that I was not good at doing surgery, and that failure gave me an opportunity to move to basic science. Then my first major was pharmacology, and in pharmacology we only use many inhibitors and stimulators, all just drugs. And any drug cannot be 100 percent specific and 100 percent effective. So although I did many, many experiments, I did not obtain the answer, because the drugs I used weren't specific enough. So that was kind of my second failure in my career. But that second failure got me interested in knockout mice, mouse technology. So I think failure is important in my career.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

In science, because it's based on experimentation, it seems that scientists rely on failure, not only to tell them what not to do, but what to do first.

Shinya Yamanaka: I agree, yes.

Did you start working with stem cells in graduate school?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Shinya Yamanaka: In my Ph.D. school, I didn't work on stem cells. I just worked on basic pharmacology. But by doing pharmacology, I got very interested in so-called "knockout mouse" technology. Knockout mouse is a way to study the function of genes. You know, both human and mouse have approximately 20,000 genes. With knockout mouse technology, we can select one gene out of those 20,000 genes, and completely destroy that one particular gene so that we can understand the function of that particular gene. I got very interested in that technology. It was 1992 or 1993 when I graduated from my Ph.D. school. So I decided to study -- I decided to learn about knockout mice technology. But at that time in Japan, only a few scientists were working on knockout mice technology. That's why I decided to move to the States, San Francisco.

Did you already have a position lined up in San Francisco?

Shinya Yamanaka: Yes, I became a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California in San Francisco.

What brought you to that particular university?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Shinya Yamanaka: Usually to find a job in the States -- from Japan -- usually you have to ask your professor in Japan to recommend some place. But unfortunately, at that time, my professor -- my mentor in Japan -- did not know any labs working on knockout mice. So I did not get any good recommendations. So I had to apply for many positions, which I learned from scientific journals such as Nature and Science. I applied to -- I forget -- like 20 or 30 different universities and laboratories in the States. And UCSF -- University of California at San Francisco -- was the first to give me an opportunity. That was why I ended up coming to San Francisco.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

What was your next move after San Francisco?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Shinya Yamanaka: After finishing my post-doc training in San Francisco, I went back to Osaka in 1996, and I was lucky to get an assistant professor position in the same laboratory where I got my Ph.D. But compared to my scientific career in the States, in San Francisco, I had a hard time after going back to Japan, because the funding was not good enough back in Osaka. And at that time I only had a few scientists around me who I can discuss with. So I had a hard time in the first two or three years after I went back to Japan, Osaka.

How did you cope with these difficulties after you went back to Japan?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Shinya Yamanaka: I really had hard times, so I was about to quit doing science. I was about to go back to clinics, but again, I was lucky to find another position, in Nara. Nara is very close to Osaka. It's only one hour by car. There's another university in Nara, and I was lucky enough to find a position as an associate professor over there. The funding was much better, and the scientific atmosphere was much better over there. That means there are many, many good scientists in that university in Nara. So without that promotion, probably I [would have] quit my scientific career.

[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

You've mentioned luck, more than once.

Shinya Yamanaka: Yeah. I have been very lucky.

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