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Hirasawa Lab
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This lab does metabolic engineering research, getting microbes to produce useful substances.
AboutAbout the lab
Making things with microbes.
Hirasawa Lab works on metabolic engineering, using microbes as hosts to produce useful substances.
Microbial cells multiply quickly and have highly active metabolism, which makes them excellent hosts for manufacturing.
Having microbes produce substances that have been made chemically is expected to help build a circular society.
Targeting Escherichia coli, coryneform bacteria, and budding yeast, the lab handles everything from strain breeding to developing production-process technologies.
Key terms
- Metabolic engineering
- A technology that reworks the flow of substances inside cells to make them produce more of a target substance
- Strain breeding
- Creating strains of organisms that have desired traits
- Omics analysis
- Comprehensively measuring genes, proteins, and metabolites together to examine the state of cells
NewsLab news
A review on yeast deletion mutant collections has been accepted for publication in Yeast
An undergraduate student received the Izumi Kamata Award
A study showing that raising osmotic pressure promotes ergothioneine production has been accepted for publication in a journal
ResearchResearch themes
The lab aims to build foundational technologies for manufacturing with microbial cells. Focusing mainly on Escherichia coli, coryneform bacteria known as amino acid producers, and budding yeast used in alcohol fermentation, it works on producing useful substances, expanding the range of usable carbon sources, elucidating production mechanisms, and developing production-process technologies.
*Illustrative imageStrain Breeding of Microbes through Metabolic Engineering
Manufacturing requires breeding microbes that produce the target substance. Instead of breeding by mutation, which has long been the mainstream approach, the lab develops rational breeding technologies that take advantage of omics analysis, which surveys the whole genome, and synthetic biology. Examples include research on giving budding yeast the ability to use glycerol and on creating microbes that can use methanol.
*Illustrative imageElucidating the Mechanisms of Microbial Production
Amino acid fermentation by coryneform bacteria is a technology developed in Japan, but much about how it works remains unknown. The lab aims to clarify how glutamate fermentation occurs, by looking at its relationship with stress responses and the regulation of gene expression, and to apply the findings to manufacturing with other microbes.
MembersFaculty
Hirasawa Lab members include faculty, research support staff, and doctoral, master's, and undergraduate students.As of 2026
- Associate ProfessorTakashi HirasawaPublications ↗
VoicesStudent voices
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Report an errorAbout the images
The top and research theme images are illustrative and were not taken at the lab. They are cropped from Wikimedia Commons images. Cropped CC BY-SA images are provided under the same CC BY-SA license as the original (version shown on each line).
- Top image: “Stainless steel vinification tanks” Cjp24 / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Strain Breeding of Microbes through Metabolic Engineering: “Baking yeast cells under 40x microscope objective” ~delta / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Elucidating the Mechanisms of Microbial Production: “MSG crystals” Ragesoss / Public domain (cropped)
- Related lab (八波研究室): “Salin de Gruissan (Ifremer )” Isabelle Cheret / CC BY 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (福居研究室): “Yellowstone National Park (WY, USA), Grand Prismatic Spring” Dietmar Rabich / CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped)
- Related lab (田中
(寛)・吉田研究室): “Leaf epithelium, guard cells, stomatal pore and peripheral chloroplasts” Emilio Ermini / CC BY 4.0 (cropped) - Related lab (増田研究室): “Cyanobacteria guerrero negro” NASA / Public domain (cropped)
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