The RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology (CDB), along with the other RIKEN Kobe Campus research centers held its annual Open House on Saturday, November 5. The sunny weather made it a perfect day for an outing, and over 1,700 people of all ages dropped by the CDB to learn about the latest research being carried out here.

The Open House is the one day of the year, in which the CDB opens its doors to the general public. One of the highlights of the Open House is the Open Labs where visitors are permitted to walk through the laboratories, see samples of cells and tissues under microscopes, and talk to scientists about their research. This year, five CDB laboratories—Cell Adhesion and Tissue Patterning (Masatoshi Takeichi, Team Leader), Growth Control Signaling (Takashi Nishimura, Team Leader), Chromosome Segregation (Tomoya Kitajima, Team Leader), and Retinal Regeneration (Masayo Takahashi, Project Leader)—took part in this event.

Other events included an exhibit introducing different model organisms used in research, a DNA experiment corner where participants could try out techniques used by scientists for DNA analysis, and a talk show and Q&A session with scientists working at the CDB campus. There was also a book lounge with books on display that were recommended by scientists, and a handicraft corner for kids making animal masks and color-your-own bags.

Similar events were held at other institutions located within the Kobe Biomedical and Innovation Cluster on the same day.