UH Hilo biology alumna Kailee Yoshimura pursues doctoral degree at UCLA
Now researching genetic mutations related to obesity, Kailee Yoshimura says her studies at UH Hilo gave her the research skills and personal development she needs as a doctoral candidate.
Equipped with both research skills and personal development she says the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo helped her acquire, 2022 biology alumna Kailee Yoshimura is now pursuing a doctoral degree at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Yoshimura chose the molecular biology interdepartmental doctoral program at UCLA for flexibility.
“Going into a PhD I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to study so I went for an umbrella program,” she says. “You’re able to study a broad range of topics and you’re not strictly tied to a specific one.”
Having recently passed her qualifying exams, she is skipping a master’s and going straight from her undergraduate work to her doctoral degree. “I am getting my doctoral degree in cell and developmental biology, which is a home area under the molecular biology interdepartmental program.”
The research she’s been doing at geneticist Débora Sobreira’s lab is focused on genetics where Yoshimura is investigating mutations related to obesity. She notes this work is important to generally understanding obesity as a disease, observing that genetic work has helped change the way people view obesity.
“[Obesity is] actually a very complex disease,” she says. “There’s a lot of genetic components intertwined with obesity. In the past, the idea of obesity wasn’t necessarily a disease but maybe some people would say it’s based on your lifestyle or diet.”
Start at UH Hilo
After graduating from Kamehameha Schools Hawaiʻi campus in 2017, Yoshimura enrolled at the City College of San Francisco. After a year there, she made the decision to move back home and enrolled at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, where she found faculty to be very supportive; she notes the mentorships she received from biology faculty Patrick Hart and Jonathan Awaya along with chemistry professor Mazen Hamad.
“All the coursework helped me continue to pursue my education but I believe that [faculty] helped me gain a better understanding of the complexities of the world around us,” says Yoshimura. “I had a whole network of people that helped me a lot.”
That network included UH Hilo professors who helped her outside the classroom with research opportunities and paid lab work, experiences that helped her decide to stay in the field of biology.
She got interested in research through a federally-funded assistant position made available through the now-concluded Students of Hawaiʻi Advanced Research Program (SHARP); she was an assistant researcher at the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Pacific Basin Agriculture Research Center in Hilo where she worked on genome assessment, floral pigmentation, pathogen resistance experiments, and overall maintenance in anthurium specimens. “This was my first experience in a traditional working lab. It’s very different to be in a working lab versus being in a lab as part of a course,” she says.
While working at the agricultural research center with molecular biologist Jon Suzuki, an affiliate faculty of the UH Hilo tropical conservation biology and environmental science graduate program, Yoshimura was also shadowing doctors since she was still interested in potentially going to medical school. However, after feeling queasy watching a procedure, she realized that career path wasn’t going to be a good fit for her.
She soon realized she could still contribute to the medical world through doing biomedical research. “I want to stay in medicine but I know I can’t handle blood or procedures itself. So, I thought it would be best for me to do something that could possibly help current research and also future generations.” She says Suzuki was one of the first people to plant the idea that pursuing a doctorate was an option for her. “At the time, a PhD seemed like it was an impossibility for me.”
As an undergraduate, Yoshimura also conducted cancer research through Research Initiative for Scientific Enhancement (RISE) funding with pharmaceutical sciences professors Abhijit Date and then Leng Chee Chang. Yoshimura notes the postdoctoral researchers at Date’s lab being particularly supportive, helping to further the PhD seed that Suzuki had planted. “They helped me gain more confidence in myself,” she says.
Yoshimura also found an important mentor in Professor of Anthropology Lynn Morrison who she first met as an advisor for the SHARP program. Yoshimura later did research on the impact of COVID-19 on UH Hilo students with Morrison as her supervisor.
Two key UH Hilo experiences prepared the way to PhD
Two key experiences that contributed to Yoshimura feeling prepared to apply for a doctoral degree were presenting her research for the first time at the Annual Biomedical Research Conference for Minority Students in 2020 and conducting research as an Amgen scholar with the Stanford Summer Research Program in 2021.
Presenting at the conference was an opportunity facilitated by UH Hilo’s SHARP program. To prepare for the conference, Yoshimura and fellow UH Hilo students had to read scientific journals, create research abstracts, and prepare posters. “The entire process really helped me understand how much work goes into this,” says Yoshimura about preparing for her award-winning poster presentation, “Development of Quercetin Containing Polymeric Nanoparticles for Oral Delivery.”
She adds, “It introduced me to the world of research and I still use things I learned from this experience today.”
Yoshimura also learned important skills doing RNA research through the Stanford Summer Research Program. Due to COVID-19, the internship was conducted online which meant she had to focus more on developing coding and programming skills which have been “tremendously helpful” in her current studies at UCLA.
The experience also provided opportunities for her to understand the PhD application process and make connections. She encourages other students to apply more for experiences outside of UH Hilo. “It may seem very intimidating. I was very shocked I even got the Stanford internship. It really pushed me into becoming more confident in who I am and what I’m able to do,” says Yoshimura.
National Student Exchange: Independence, personal growth, and snow
Yoshimura’s confidence was also boosted while at UH Hilo through National Student Exchange, which she chose to develop independence. She attended the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs because she wanted to “experience all four seasons” and see the snow. She remembers visiting the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Reserve as well as skiing through a program that would drive students to famous sites in exchange for a small fee.
Along with exploring the nature of the state, she also experienced unique course structures at UCCS. She remembers one course where their biology labs contributed to one giant experiment, with weekly individual experiments leading into larger findings. “I got to see how other campuses work and experience what a full four year institution on the mainland was like,” she says.
Yoshimura credits her exchange experience for great personal growth, helping her to better understand time management along with other life skills. “It helped me grow as a student and a person,” she says. “I feel like it prepared me very well for living outside the island.”
Looking to the future: Coming back home to help people
Yoshimura hopes to one day apply her UCLA genetic research experience back home in Hawaiʻi, specifically in how different mutations cause health disparities in the state. She observes that biomedical research sometimes fails to include a variety of people in studies and she thinks Hawaiʻi is a great place to conduct inclusive studies with its “many different populations.”
“Everything I do here I believe will help in many different aspects in the future,” she says. “The more we figure out procedures, medications, and understanding of diseases, the more we can help people.”
Story by Sophia Kim-O’Sullivan, a graduate student in library science and information at UH Mānoa.
