Develops a new method to prevent fungi disease in salmonids

Túlio Yoshinaga, Excellence by Choice' postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Clinical Microbiology at Umeå University. Túlio's main supervisor is Constantin Urban and Co-supervisors are Lo Persson. SLU,  and Henrik Jeute.

ImageMattias Pettersson

I saw the opportunity to return to fish research, which I have a great passion for

Tell us more about what your research focusing on!

“Our aim is to develop methods to treat or prevent saprolegnia infection in salmonids. We are establishing the in vitro culture of the fungi in our laboratory. After that we will perform RNA sequencing to identify essential genes involved in growth, pathogenicity or metabolism and based on their RNA sequences, we will use the CRISPR/Cas9 technology to knockout those genes. Later we will try to find organic compounds which inhibit or interfere with these genes.”

How did you end up in Northern Sweden and at Umeå University?

“I was looking for internation experience. My supervisors always advised me to do that in order to be competitive and establish a research career. I saw this position at Umeå University to work with saprolegnia. During my PhD, we always had problems with saprolegnia infection in our egg incubators. At that moment I saw the opportunity to return to fish research, which I have a great passion for, and get the international experience that I wanted.”

What are your first impressions of Umeå and its university?

“I was surprised how quiet and peaceful Umeå is, and I like it … During my master and Phd studies, I lived in a quiet place like here. It was where we maintained our fish for the experiments. I love that place! Umeå University is great, everything is easily accessible, I can walk to the university from home, something that was not possible in São Paulo.”

What is your driving force to do research in life science?

“I aim to learn novel techniques, some of them has not being established in fish and I can be the pioneer. I like to do what nobody is doing. Furthermore, I like to know what is being done in mammals that can be applied for fish research. Sometimes we also discover something in fish that was unknown in mammals.”

What is challenging and rewarding respectively with being a researcher?

“Hm… I believe that the most challenging thing about being a researcher is to overcome the frustration. Sometimes we will make mistakes or something unexpected happen ending in bad experimental results. I try not to be upset about my own failures … I try to learn and move forward with it.”

“The most rewarding thing is the joy and the happiness when we get good results, and we can publish a real good work. My supervisor from Japan told me always try to go for the home run. The Japanese people likes baseball.”

Where do you see yourself in five years?

“I want to be professor or a researcher running my laboratory and supervising master and PhD students. All my research knowledge should be passed forward… I have research ideas for grants and other research involving fish and it will be nice to continue my work here. We still have so much to discover.”

What is your academic background?

“I am a biologist and got my master and PhD from the School of Veterinary Medicine and Animal Science of the University of São Paulo in Brazil. My research was the immune rejection involved in reproductive biotechnologies in salmonids. We established immunosuppressive treatment capable to avoid immune rejection to improve the germ cell transplantation technique in Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout.

“After my PhD, I worked as a cellular and molecular specialist in a startup company. I was responsible to perform several genetic modifications in porcine cells capable to escape from the immune system. Later, these cells will be used to breed animals through somatic nuclear transfer technology to breed animals to serve as donors for organ transplantation in humans.”

What do you like to do in your free time?

“I stay at home most of my free time. I like to cook, my speciality is Japanese rice curry, ramen, and other Japanese dishes. Also, I like to play solo games, but there are few games that I play online with my brothers in Brazil. Currently I am playing chess, I learned chess when I was eight years old, and I loved it. During the weekends I do some hikes around my neighbourhood.

Túlio Yoshinaga. 

ImageMattias Pettersson