Finding your theme

You might think that finding a research theme is simply a matter of starting with a question that interests you, turning it into a concrete problem and then planning and carrying out experiments to solve the problem. It is, but the really tricky part is finding a theme that’s suited to you personally. For example, if you’re thinking of using an experimental organism, you’d better make sure you’re compatible with it. Sydney Brenner, who started the study of the molecular genetics of the nematode worm, gives exceptionally interesting talks and has been known to lure other scientists into changing their research direction as a result. I came close to becoming one of them but I soon realised that it wasn’t for me; the worms reminded me too vividly of the gut parasites I’d had as a child. Most graduate students are strongly influenced by their supervisors in choosing a research project. If you’re lucky, it’ll be one that suits you but, in any case, by the time you’ve finished your PhD, you’ll need to have worked out your own research direction. And this choice is important because what you work on is, in some ways, an emblem of yourself, representing what you are in the science community. For me, it was my first stay in Britain in the late 1960s that helped me to choose a research direction. Many things I encountered there made strong impressions on me — such as the style of presentation at seminars, with much emphasis on humour — but the most unforgettable part was the discussions I had with other young graduate students. In those days I was seriously troubled by not knowing how to find a truly fundamental theme. These British students didn’t have such hang-ups, they simply saw themselves as part of a continuum, picking up the research themes of their predecessors and attempting to solve the current problems. (If anything, they might have been a little worried that their energetic American counterparts would take the same problem and solve it before they did.) Even though I came from a very different research environment — Japan did not have such a deep a research history at the time — the question of themes stopped bothering me so much after this.