HFSP Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded to Takuya Hidaka
The Human Frontier Science Program selected Takuya Hidaka, a Postdoctoral researcher in the lab of Daniel Gerlich at IMBA, for one of the program’s competitive fellowships. His project will study how DNA is disentangled during cell division.
Takuya Hidaka did his PhD in Chemistry at the Graduate School of Science at Kyoto University, Japan, where he developed DNA-binding molecules for modulating mitochondrial DNA. After his PhD, Hidaka joined the Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research at Osaka, Japan, as a postdoctoral researcher, where he developed a highly sensitive protein quantification system based on single-molecule imaging.
“I’m grateful for the support by the Human Frontier Science Program, and excited about the opportunity to develop an interdisciplinary research profile,” Takuya Hidaka says. “This funding will allow me to combine my chemical expertise with new knowledge in cell biology to develop an exciting research project.”
Hidaka joined the Gerlich lab as a postdoctoral fellow in April 2024. In his project, Hidaka will study how extremely long DNA molecules are disentangled from each other: After DNA replication, the two sister strands, called chromatids, have to be disentangled to ensure that they are correctly distributed into the daughter cells “I will investigate how proteins Topoisomerase II and Condensin cooperate to separate the two sister chromatids,” Takuya Hidaka will combine state-of-the-art DNA barcoding with advanced labeling and sequencing techniques to reconstruct sister-chromatid structure at single-cell level. His project aims to provide unprecedented resolution for understanding cell division.
The Human Frontier Science Program awards 3-year postdoctoral fellowships to outstanding scientists worldwide who wish to pursue frontier, potentially transformative research in the life sciences.
The peer-review selection process evaluates the applicant's achievements, as well as the scientific quality of the project and host laboratory. The process is highly competitive, with less than 10 percent of applicants receiving a fellowship. On top of a monthly stipend, the HFSP provides research and travel allowances.