Interviews with Scientists-Meet Takuma Kobayashi

Lab: Dr. Adrienne G. Randolph’s lab at Boston Children's Hospital

What was your favorite conference to attend?

The Centers of Excellence for Influenza Research and Response (CEIRR) annual meeting 😊. It is interesting to see what more we can learn about a pathogen we are all so intimately familiar with. This year, we learned about the current status of the A(H5N1) avian flu outbreak in dairy cows and the real-time research efforts to investigate its potential impact. 

What do you research?

Influenza and SARS-CoV-2 infections can result in severe disease for many children each year. Our research tries to understand the host response to these viruses, including how the immune system responds to and recovers from infection, and why some children might be more vulnerable than others to developing complications after infection that lead to hospitalization. By collecting clinical information and samples from hospitalized patients infected with these pathogens across the United States, we can investigate this issue further in the hopes of improving diagnosis and treatment. For more information, you can visit the Pediatric Intensive Care Influenza Network (PICFLU) (picflu.org) or Overcoming COVID-19 websites (overcomecovid.org)!

What has been your favorite research project?

We recently analyzed the frequency and clinical impact of bacterial and viral coinfections in children with critical influenza-associated lower respiratory infections. In our pediatric cohort, we found that bacterial and viral coinfections occurred relatively frequently (~10% and 15%, respectively) and bacterial, but not viral, coinfections were associated with increased disease severity in children already hospitalized with influenza. Similar results have been reported in adult cohorts and we were able to confirm these conclusions with children. 

What are you hoping to achieve in science?

To ensure that no child has to suffer from influenza virus infection. We will continue to chip away where we can against our continually evolving common enemy in the hopes of reaching this goal. The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 also reinforces the importance of surveillance, public health, and communicating our science with the public. 

What is your favorite lab activity?/What is your favorite thing about the lab?

The people in the lab are the best parts of any lab (in my opinion). It’s always inspiring to see others united and working towards a common goal. We collaborate on issues to solve them, agree on the best solutions, argue about why one method might be better than another, and analyze the data together. It’s all part of science and it wouldn’t be possible without others. 

What is your favorite thing to do outside of lab?

Watching soccer, swimming at the beach, and hiking in the woods. 

What do you find exciting in science? 

Learning something new every day: from your experiments, samples, and the people around you! We all hope that our work and whatever we learn will be able to help someone else in the future. 

Favorite Olympic sport? (It’s Paris Olympics summer!)

Soccer and more recently, fencing 🤺!