2011 Open House

November 8, 2011 –The RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology held its annual visitors’ day activities on November 5 as part of the RIKEN Kobe Institute Open House event, which featured talks, science-themed crafts and games, demonstrations and open laboratories highlighting the research being done at the Institute’s research centers. More than 1,200 visitors from around the Kobe area participated in the event.

From the CDB, Group Director Yoshiki Sasai (Laboratory for Organogenesis and Neurogenesis) gave a morning talk on the organ-forming potential of pluripotent stem cells in vitro, explaining how ES and iPS cells can be induced to give rise to complex tissue structures in a self-organized fashion. Multiple CDB labs also opened the doors to visitors, including the Laboratories for Cell Asymmetry, Early Embryogenesis, and Neocortical Development, and the Division for Human Stem Cell Technology, where they interacted with students and scientists and learned about and discussed aspects of their work. Other features included a an exhibition of model organisms used in the CDB’s research, a science café event, and a craft-making corner co-organized by the Kobe Science Museum.

Other Kobe-based RIKEN research entities, including the Center for Molecular Imaging Science (CMIS), Quantitative Biology Center (QBiC), High-Performance Computing Infrastructure Initiative (HPCI) and the Advanced Institute for Computational Science (AICS/K computer), held their Open House events on the same day.