News
News
【FIBER】At the Forefront of Management Cultivating Young Researchers — Distinguished Professor Naoki Sugimoto’s Young Talent Development Highly Praised.
2025/11/14
Within Japan Science and Technology Agency’s (JST) ACT-X “Life and Chemistry” program—a challenging research domain integrating science, engineering, and life sciences—Distinguished Professor Naoki Sugimoto, in Frontier Institute for Biomolecular Engineering Research (FIBER), has been highly commended in ACT-X’s post-project evaluation for his bold efforts as a domain advisor in nurturing the next generation of researchers.
Professor Sugimoto serves as a core member of the Konan New Century Strategic Research Project (Phase I) (Project Representative: Associate Professor Hisae Tateishi-Karimata) being conducted at FIBER. This research project also sets the development of young researchers as one of its goals, and Professor Sugimoto actively engages in nurturing young talent within FIBER. This recognition reflects the high regard for his ongoing efforts in this area.
Overview
Professor Sugimoto, as Distinguished Professor, played a significant role as an Area Advisor within the JST ACT-X “Life and Chemistry” Research Area (Research Director: Mikiko Sodeoka, Deputy Director, RIKEN Center for Sustainable Resource Science). His contributions focused on discovering and nurturing young researchers, as well as promoting interdisciplinary integration and networking.
Under this research area, four strategic goals—spatiotemporal interactions among multicellular organisms, genome-scale DNA synthesis and functional expression, establishing production processes contributing to a sustainable society, and environmentally adaptive plant production systems—have been established. This has created a new research platform integrating life and chemistry, providing young researchers with opportunities to take on challenges. Sixty research projects led by young researchers were selected (including 22 female researchers). Fourteen advisors from academia and industry participated in the advisory system, providing meticulous support not only for research guidance but also focusing on career development and work-life balance.
Through dialogue, advice, and networking support with young researchers within this organizational management framework, Professor Sugimoto has fostered researchers who challenge the future with their own ideas. As a result, the entire field was highly evaluated as “exceptionally outstanding,” and the support for young researchers was assessed as having “sufficiently achieved the discovery and cultivation of researchers who will lead the next generation.”
FIBER will continue to contribute to the advancement of science and technology and socio-economic development through research in the fields of biochemistry and nucleic acid chemistry, as well as the cultivation of young researchers.