Japanese molecular biologist and academic
Yukiko Goda is a Japanese molecular biologist who is a professor and group leader at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology. Her research considers neural communication through synapses. She was elected a Member of the European Molecular Biology Organization in 2023.
Early life
Goda was born in Osaka, but grew up between Japan and Canada because her father worked in a trading company.[1] She was at high school in Toronto, and secured a scholarship to attend the University of Toronto.[1] Despite initially considering literature, Goda became interested in science during her undergraduate studies, and spent her summer holidays on research placements in chemistry and biology.[1] She worked in Jack Greenblatt's laboratory, where she studied bacteriophage transcription.[1][2] She trained in cell biology, and completed her doctoral research at Stanford University with Suzanne Pfeffer, where she studied vesicular transport from endosomes to the Golgi complex.[3] She completed a course on developmental neurobiology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, where she learned that Stevens' group were investigating synaptic plasticity in vivo.[1] Goda moved to the Salk Institute for Biological Studies as a postdoctoral researcher with Charles F. Stevens,[2] where she specialised in electrophysiology, and studied how neurons alter their synaptic strengths.[4][1] Goda eventually set up her own laboratory at University of California, San Diego.[1] In 2001, she moved to the Medical Research Council at University College London.[2]
Research and career
In 2011, Goda returned to Japan, where she established her own research group at Riken.[5] She joined the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology in 2022.[5] Her research has uncovered the processes involved in trans-synaptic interactions.[2] Goda has dedicated her career to understanding the molecular mechanisms of synaptic function, including synaptic homeostasis and other types of plasticity.[1]
Awards and honours
Selected publications
References
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