2024 Activity Report vol.15:Hokkaido University

Sakura Science Program (SSP) was implemented at Hokkaido University from December 09 to December 14, 2024. Seven students and an assistant professor from Chemistry, Biotechnology, and Biomedical Engineering backgrounds from the Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad (IITH) participated in this program. To organize the program for the benefit of all branches of students, interdisciplinary laboratory visits were planned for each day from the areas of food science, life science, chemistry, Medical AI, and environmental research.

[December 09, 2025]

The 8 participants arrived at the new Chitose airport from India. Dr. Gowda received them and hosted a networking welcoming dinner event in Sapporo City.

[December 10, 2025]

The SSP inaugural ceremony and the India-Japan Society for Science, Technology & Education (IJSSTE) Science seminar were jointly held for the whole day. Sri Sibi George, Ambassador of India to Japan, inaugurated the program and gave the welcome address by participating online. Then several other professors from Hokkaido University and IITH addressed the gathering by participating offline/online. Namely, Prof. YANO Rika, Dean, Graduate School of Health Sciences, Hokkaido University, Japan; Prof. Murthy B.S., Director, Indian Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, India; Prof. SONE Teruo, Dean, Graduate School of Global Food Resources; Prof. Tarun K. Panda, Dean (International Relations), IITH, India (Online); Prof. Sakthi Kumar, President, IJSSTE. It was a special advantage that Dr. NISHIKAWA Yuji, Advisor, Sakura Science Program, participated in the program online and taught us the significance of SSP for the mutual benefits of India and Japan's friendship. Special lectures on "SMART Gene Switches for Precision Medicine" by Prof. Ganesh, IN-CBI, Kyoto University, and "Tumor Diagnostics and Therapeutics" by Prof. Sakthi Kumar, Toyo University, are a few among them.

[December 11, 2025]

In the morning the SSP members visited the Hokkaido Wine Center on campus and Prof. SONE Teruo, the director of the center received them and guided various aspects of wine-making technologies. Students had a chance to interact with him and asked several questions about wine education and research. Then, at noon the students visited the Laboratory for Advanced Lipid Analysis (LALA) and Dr. Gowda hosted them. Students learned about the application of mass spectrometric technologies in clinical and food analysis. Students also had hand-on experience in using the mass spectrophotometer to characterize the authentic standards.

[December 12, 2025]

In the morning, students visited the International Institute for Zoonosis Control (hosted by Dr. OHNO), RIES-Research Institute for Electronic Science, Hokkaido (hosted by Prof. Biju, Prof. TAMAOKI), and Prof. Benjamin List lab (hosted by Dr. Ravindra). Then experienced various technologies from how to conduct virus research to making advanced materials for life science applications. In the afternoon, they went to the Faculty of Advanced Life Sciences and visited Prof. MONDE Kenji lab followed by Prof. HINOU Hiroshi lab. They learned about the Vibrational CD spectroscopy and glycoblotting technologies. Prof. MONDE presented his laboratory research themes to students and discussed them with the assistant professor.

[December 13, 2025]

In the morning, the team visited Hokkaido University Center for Environmental and Health Sciences (CEHS) and learned about the technologies used in doing environmental and health research. Then Prof. IKEDA Atsuko and Prof. YAMAUCHI Taro from the Department of Health Science introduced their laboratory and ongoing research projects. Later, all the members visited several laboratories affiliated with the Department of Medical Technology Laboratories (Prof. YAMACUCHI Hiroyuki, Prof. ISHIZU Akihiro, and Prof. KAGA Sanae) and learned about their lab research including Echocardiography and bacterial research. Later learned about Medical AI technology and its advances from Prof. SUGIMORI of the Department of Radiation Technology. In the evening, they visited the Graduate School of Environmental Sciences which is hosted by Prof. KAWAGUCHI. They experienced about the use and applications of remote sensing technologies.

[December 14, 2025]

This was the last day of the program they visited the Hokkaido University Museum, followed by the Sapporo Science Center in Shin Sapporo. The students learned about astrophysics and experienced the science learning education technologies for children that are implemented in the center.

Overall, it was a very packed program, and students enjoyed it by actively participating in questions and discussions. In the meantime, they enjoyed the Hokkaido snow for the first time and delicious foods such as ramen. All of them happily departed to India on December 15th early in the morning.

We are looking forward to hosting many more students across the globe to introduce the unique technologies at Hokkaido University.