Professor
Director of Research
The University of British Columbia
School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME)
Faculty of Applied Science and Faculty of Medicine

Specially Appointed Professor
Osaka University
Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (PRIMe)

Visiting Professor
The University of Tokyo
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST)

Canada Research Chair (Tier 2) in Synthetic Biology

Allen Distinguished Investigator

CIFAR Fellow in Multiscale Human

E-mail: nozomu.yachieubc.ca

Usual materials for talk invitation can be found here.

Nozomu Yachie is a Professor and Director of Research at the School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME) at the University of British Columbia (UBC) and a Specially Appointed Professor at the Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (PRIMe) at Osaka University. Combining technologies in cell engineering, genome editing, and computational biology, the Yachie laboratory at UBC and Osaka University is developing new technologies to measure the dynamics of molecules and cells in complex biological systems, including mammalian development and cell differentiation.

From 2014-2020, Yachie was an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) and also served as the Director of the Laboratories for Systems Biology and Medicine (LSBM).

Yachie received his PhD degree in Systems Biology from Keio University in 2009. He then completed postdoctoral training at Dr. Fritz Roth’s lab at Harvard Medical School before receiving a Banting Postdoctoral Fellowship and continuing his training with Dr. Roth at the University of Toronto.

JSPS Prize
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

CIFAR Fellow
MacMillan Multiscale Human Program
Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

Allen Distinguished Investigator
Allen Institute

Canada Research Chair in Synthetic Biology
The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)

Minister's Young Scientists Award
Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan

PRESTO Researcher
Japan Science and Technology (JST)

Banting Fellowship
National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC)

JSPS Fellowships ('DC1', 'PD' and 'Research Abroad')
Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

The University of British Columbia

(July 2023-Today)
Professor
School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME)

(July 2022-Today)
Research Director
School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME)

(September 2020-June 2023)
Associate Professor
School of Biomedical Engineering (SBME)

Profile at UBC SBME

Osaka University

Specially Appointed Professor
Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (PRIMe)

The University of Tokyo

(October 2023-Today)
Visiting Professor

(September 2020-August 2023)
Visiting Associate Professor
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST)

Profile at U Tokyo RCAST

Keio University

Guest Professor (Global)
Graduate School of Media and Governance

The University of Tokyo

Associate Professor
Synthetic Biology Division
Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST)

Graduate School of Engineering
Department of Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies (AIS)

(April 2015-August 2020)
Graduate School of Science
Department of Biological Sciences

(April 2015-August 2020)
PEAK Program, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
GPES Program, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

(January 2018-October 2019)
Director
Laboratories for Systems Biology and Medicine

Keio University

(April 2015-December 2021)
Adjunct Associate Professor
Graduate School of Media and Governance
Institute for Advanced Biosciences

(June 2014-March 2015)
Adjunct Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Media and Governance
Institute for Advanced Biosciences

Japan Science and Technology

PRESTO Researcher

Harvard Medical School and University of Toronto

(December 2010-June 2014)
Postdoctoral Fellow (w/ Dr. Fritz Roth)
Donnelly Centre for Cellular and Biomolecular Research
University of Toronto

(April 2010-November 2010)
Postdoctoral Fellow (w/ Dr. Fritz Roth)
Department of Biological Chemistry and Molecular Pharmacology
Harvard Medical School

Keio University

Postdoctoral Fellow
Institute for Advanced Biosciences

Ph.D., Systems Biology Program, Keio University

M.M.G., Bioinformatics Program, Keio University

B.A., Faculty of Environment and Information Studies, Keio University

Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST)

PRESTO Advisor

Science Council of Japan

Adjunct member
Young Academy of Japan

Creative Destrcution Lab

Scientist

Synplogen

Scientific Advisor

Robotic Biology Institute, Inc.

Advisor

RIKEN

Visiting Reseacher

Spiber, Inc.

(October 2016-March 2019)
Fellow

(July 2014-September 2016)
Advisor

New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization (NEDO)

NEDO Committee Member

Robotic Biology Consortium

Chairman

NARA Institute of Science and Technology

Part-time Lecturer

United Japanese Researchers Around the World (UJA)

Board Member

Mie University

Part-time Lecturer
Department of Medicine

Keio University

(April 2009-March 2010)
Visiting Senior Researcher
Keio Research Institute at SFC

(April 2007-March 2009)
Part-time Lecturer
Department of Environmental Information

(April 2006-March 2009)
Research Assistant (TTCK Fellow)
Institute for Advanced Biosciences

Yachie's CV is here.

Nozomu Yachie is a Professor and Director of Research at UBC Biomedical Engineering and at Osaka University’s Premium Research Institute for Human Metaverse Medicine (PRIMe). Combining technologies in cell engineering, genome editing, and computational biology, the Yachie laboratories are developing new technologies to measure the dynamics of molecules and cells in complex biological systems, including mammalian development and cell differentiation. After completing his postdoctoral training at Fritz Roth’s laboratory at Harvard and the University of Toronto, Yachie was an Associate Professor at the University of Tokyo’s Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology (RCAST) from 2014 to 2020. He is a recipient of several awards, including Banting Fellow (2012), JST PRESTO Researcher (2014), Canada Research Chair (2020), Minister’s Prize by Ministry of Science and Education (2022), Allen Distinguished Investigator Award (2022), and JSPS Prize (2024).

Starting from a fertilized egg, cells proliferate, pass their genomic information to their offspring, and dynamically change their functions to form diverse tissue structures. Throughout development, intracellular and environmental cues trigger patterns of gene expression that govern cell state transitions and produce additional cellular and environmental cues, leading cells to self-organize into functional clusters within spatially distinct areas. How can these processes be investigated? Our research program is developing technologies in two different approaches: (1) DNA event recording and (2) retrospective clone isolation.

In the idea of DNA event recording, molecular and cellular events of a multicellular organism are progressively stored in synthetic “DNA tapes,” like a molecular ticker tape. Such a system allows for the readout of historical molecular expression profiles of many cells using high-throughput single-cell sequencing.

Another idea to achieve dynamic, high-content observation of progressive systems is retrospective clone isolation. In this concept, cells in a population are first tagged with unique, short DNA barcodes and propagated. A subpopulation is then subjected to a specific assay. After identifying a barcode for a clone of interest, the same clone, or its close relatives, is isolated in a barcode-dependent manner from the initial population or any other subpopulation stored during the experiment. The isolated clone can be subjected to various experiments, including omics measurements and synthetic population reconstitution assays.