After completing his PhD, Ishino became senior research scientist at the Bioproducts Development Center of Takara Shuzo. Later in life, he joined BERI (Biomolecular Engineering Research Institute), in which he conducted research on nucleic acids-related enzymes.[4]
Research contribution
Ishino has contributed to the development of enzymology and nucleic acids research in his life. The "iap" gene in gut microbe E. coli was sequenced by Ishino and his colleagues in 1987.[6] As the DNA segment used was longer than the gene itself, they accidentally discovered a partial DNA sequence of then-unnamed CRISPR in the process,[7] which would eventually become the basis of CRISPR gene editing. Ishino was one of the first scientists to have detected CRISPRs in E. coli.[8] In 1990, Ishino began researching DNA replication of micro-organisms in the Archaea domain.[9]
