Report of the JCM booth at the RIKENBRC Open Campus 2016
For foreign researchers outside Japan, it may not be easy to attend the RIKEN BRC opencampus, unless he/she happens to be in Japan, particularly around Tsukuba-area, during
the event time. Even so, it may be worth of knowing what is going on there, if you areinterested in community outreach activities by scientists. The RIKEN BRC makes a point ofholding the open campus every year to show citizens that the center holds and develops avariety of bio-resources, including experimental animals and plants, cell-lines, genetic
materials and microbes, that are currently or potentially used in the research and industrial
communities. Here is a report of the JCM booth at the RIKEN BRC open campus, held on
22-23 April, 2016.
"What’s this!
They are whirling!"Manychildren cheered while seeing motile bacterialcells through a microscope.
"I didn't know that chocolate is a fermented
food!" A young man said with looking down apackage of chocolate on the desk.
"Oh, they are lactic acid bacteria in yogurt! Iate this product this morning!" Another woman
said while she saw Gram-stained smear ofcells under a microscope.
Such voices were heard all the time during theexhibition. Most of visitors seemed to be theneighborhood come by families and couples,

Highly motile cells of a phototrophic bacterium.
Motile bacteria are not uncommon, but they play animportant role to attract visitors.

and many junior high and high school students
also came the campus.
According to theplanning committee, more than 1,400 people
visited the campus this year.
Most people in the public may be unconsciousof the presence of microorganisms in their
daily lives. Some may had an image thatmicrobial bugs are just cause diseases or rot
organic materials.
People may know thatmicroorganisms are useful in production of
fermented foods such as Miso (bean paste),
Shoyu (soy sauce) and yogurt: but they may
not be so familiar with the microorganisms
involved in the fermentation processes.
Thanks to Prof. S. Ômura, who won the Nobel
Prize in medicine and physics last year for thediscoveries concerning a novel therapy
against infections caused by roundworm
parasites, researches using microbes might
have drawn spotlight in the public.

Cover of a booklet “Hello Microbes” (edited by
JCM to introduce the world of micro-organsims
to the public, only in Japanese) distributed atthe JCM booth.

1A scene of the JCM booth. Vistors dropped by the booth all the time during the open campus.

Supposing such the circumstances, the JCM
staff members had prepared a bunch of
microbial cultures and related materials toshow visitors at the booth. One staff member
cultivated a phototrophic bacterium, whichbears tough cells capable of moving vigorously
on a slide glass for several hours.
One
prepared Gram-stained lactic acid bacteria
and bifidobacteria from several kinds of yogurt
products. One grew a strain of Streptomyces
avermitilis on an agar plate, which produces
avermitilis and led Prof. Ômura to be awarded
the Nobel Prize. The other members also
prepared various microbial cultures: forexamples, a plate culture of Thermus
aquaticus, with which Dr. Kary Mullis has
invented the Polymerase Chain Reaction(PCR) technique: a culture of Prolixibacter
denitrificans corroding steel iron; Aspergillus
oryzae and Saccharomyces cerevisiae which
are used in various foods production. The
research staff, who is studying microbial
symbiosis in termites, showed a movie ofprotozoa which thrive in a gut of a lower
termite and are homes of many symbiotic
bacteria. In addition, a series of fermented
foods, that would help open conversation
between visitors and the staff members, werealso displayed.
Meanwhile, one of thecolleagues, Dr. M. Sakamoto, delivered aspeech entitled "Unseen but valued partnerwith us".
During his talk, he focused on,particularly, microbial flora and their functions
in human intestines that relevant to humanhealth.
Some visitors indeed got interested in themicrobes exhibited and asked questions about
them eagerly. Not a few people also extended
topics, beyond the microbes, to health,environments, life, ethics, scientificpolitics...you name it!
And during theexhibition, we have realized that visitors are
not always general citizens or prentices. I
noticed one male visitor gazed at the plate ofStreptomyces avermitilis for a while.
Nosooner I had got close to him to explain themicrobe, he started talking to me “I was astudent studying this strain at Prof. Ômura’slaboratory. I was just looking at the plate witha nostalgic feel!” “Ooh and aah (saying in myheart)”
Talking with citizens at the exhibition wasindeed enjoyable, and I felt we also learned alot from the talks. We should be very happy if
the event would make more people familiar
with the wonders of microorganisms.
(Takashi Itoh, acting as a reporter)2