Ippei Kawano
About me
Hello, and welcome to my page!
My name is Ippei Kawano, and I am currently a Ph.D. student at the Weizmann Institute, researching the metabolic impact of oxygen and carbon dioxide. I was trained as a clinician (M.D.) but decided to focus on the fundamental understanding of physiology rather than going to the bedside. If you are interested in the long version of my journey so far, please read on!
My journey spans several continents: born in Shanghai, and raised in Tokyo, I began college in California and pursued medical school in the Czech Republic. After earning my M.D., I embarked on a Ph.D. at the Weizmann Institute in Israel. It's an unconventional path, one I never anticipated traversing. I graduated from a typical public high school in Japan, where hardly anyone ventured abroad for college. When I announced my plans to study in the U.S., my teachers didn't take it seriously, and even my parents couldn't quite grasp the reality. But I was determined. Tokyo felt suffocating to my teenage self — a well-charted, low-risk life stretched before me, and I found it utterly uninspiring. I feared being consumed by ambitions that weren't truly mine, chasing goals that didn't resonate. So, I found a school in California, took the TOEFL, got my visa, and boarded a plane. I was eager to discover what the world had to offer.
In college, chemistry reintroduced itself to me. Back in high school, it was a subject I endured rather than enjoyed — tedious stoichiometric calculations and endless memorization without apparent purpose. High school chemistry felt like meticulous cataloging of random observations, paired with tedious calculations performed without calculators (a luxury we weren't permitted). Perhaps chemistry was once just that — a collection of observations awaiting meaning. However, with the introduction of thermodynamics and quantum chemistry, everything changed. Suddenly, chemical reactions transformed into orderly, predictable processes governed by a few fundamental rules. I found myself eager to explain everything, from the art of cooking to the synthesis of polyesters, through the lens of these principles. Thanks to having inspiring organic chemistry teachers, I discovered the joy of synthesis. It was like solving puzzles, but more than that, I could finally visualize the series of reactions and understand the "why"s behind them — I could almost feel what a molecule might experience if it could feel. Chemistry was no longer a dull subject; it was alive and exhilarating.
Even as chemistry ignited a new passion within me, my long-held dream of becoming a doctor remained. I was interested in all aspects of human biology, not just the specific fields like molecular biology, biochemistry, immunology, or neuroscience that were offered as undergraduate majors. However, pursuing medical school in the U.S. posed challenges: not only did it require completing a bachelor's degree first, but the costs were prohibitive.
Seeking alternatives, I discovered Charles University in the Czech Republic, with English programs accessible with SAT scores. Some of my friends cautioned against leaving the US. I had really good grades in college, and had a good chance of transferring into a competitive university, so even to me it felt like I was wasting my two-year effort. At that age, prestige held sway over me, and I would be lying if I said I didn't hesitate. But ultimately, I decided to take the SAT and see where it led. I reasoned that the curriculum would not be too different, and there would be already well-established sets of knowledge to transfer. I also embraced the Chinese proverb: "Better to be the head of a chicken than the tail of a cow," meaning it's preferable to excel in a smaller sphere than feel demotivated at the bottom of a larger one. So, I set out to be the chicken's head. I did well on the SAT, and I got a seat at the Charles University.
Life in the Czech Republic wasn't easy, but in hindsight, the challenges fortified my once rather coddled mind. I've been a perfectionist all my life. Minor deviations from my plans could unsettle me, as I feared they might derail the "theoretically achievable" best outcome. But I realized I was not so fragile. I realized I was capable of choosing not to let external disturbances affect me. With determination, even a less-than-ideal educational environment can't deny you a good education. While Charles University wasn't the flawless environment I had envisioned, it provided a reasonable platform for me to learn and grow in the best way I could devise.
Medical school fulfilled many of my long-held aspirations. I performed cadaver dissections, witnessed autopsies, and immersed myself in subjects like physiology, immunology, and pharmacology. Neurology and obstetrics particularly captivated me. I nearly fainted during my first blood-drawing class and inadvertently discovered I had latent strabismus in ophthalmology. While surgery didn't draw me in, observing robotic procedures with the DaVinci system was fascinating. I witnessed births, the fragile first days of life, and stood beside terminally ill patients in palliative care. I met alcoholics with failing livers who continued to drink, a woman haunted by voices, a man convinced spies pursued him, and a mother who relapsed into depression during the COVID lockdown. I saw a woman suffer a wake-up stroke, losing her language overnight. I attended the autopsy of a middle-aged doctor, her nails beautifully painted, her vessels pristine — a testament to self-care — yet cancer had spread throughout her organs. Medical school was indeed a profound privilege.
Above all, I was fascinated with biochemistry and metabolism. Even as a medical student, I still wanted to learn more about chemistry. I spent a summer interning at a biotech company specializing in hyaluronic acid products. Those six weeks in the quaint Czech town of Ústí nad Orlicí — mixing reagents, sending samples for NMR, measuring viscosity and toxicity — were thoroughly enjoyable. Yet, they also convinced me to relinquish my secret ambition of becoming a synthetic chemist. Performing organic synthesis lacked the allure of understanding organic reactions. I began to focus on a different kind of chemistry — the reactions occurring within the human body.
While metabolic pathways might seem tedious to some, an organic chemist's eye reveals their intricate beauty. In the lab, I conducted reactions under extreme conditions — high temperatures, extreme pH, and high concentrations. In contrast, metabolism orchestrates chemistry under mild conditions, with remarkable stereospecificity and speed, all thanks to enzymes. The engineering principles are evident: carbon-carbon bonds are formed and broken using limited strategies; ketones and aldehydes are avoided due to their reactive nature; reactions requiring activation utilize coenzyme A (once probably just an RNA fragment) instead of anhydrides, etc.
Beyond the chemistry lies the cellular control problem—maintaining adequate ATP levels, redox balance, and adapting to fluctuating oxygen and nutrients. On an organ scale, energy metabolism demands precise coordination. How does the body prevent accidental glucose depletion? How does it support organs suddenly in need of abundant substrates? At every level, metabolism presents fascinating challenges essential for life. I had discovered a vast world I wanted to explore for decades to come.
Medicine has made significant strides in treating acute conditions and certain infections. The acute care paradigm focuses on symptoms, signs, and stabilizing compromised homeostatic parameters. However, this model struggles with the rise of chronic metabolic disorders — conditions fundamentally linked to lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, and sleep. Prolonged unhealthy habits create pathologies over years or decades, often silently without clinical symptoms. By the time symptoms emerge, diseases are in advanced stages, and frequently resistant to treatment. Even when treatments address certain clinical issues, they do not address the root cause, and other aspects of metabolic imbalance persist, propelling the disease forward. Hospitals worldwide are filled with patients facing such challenges: diabetes, metabolic syndrome, atherosclerosis, and Alzheimer's, to name a few. Our current paradigms are inadequate for tackling these chronic metabolic problems. There's still so much more to uncover about metabolism.
Over time, I gravitated toward a career in science rather than clinical practice. I explored research opportunities within my medical faculty, undertaking small projects. However, these endeavors often focused on refining existing therapeutic strategies, without delving into the fundamental questions of physiology that intrigued me. Then I discovered a lab at the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, studying mitochondria in pancreatic beta cells within the context of diabetes. From my third year onward, I'd complete exams early and dedicate every summer and winter break to conducting experiments. I initially lacked formal training in molecular biology techniques, so everything was new and challenging. But I persisted in the lab intermittently until graduation. By then, I was certain — I wanted to pursue science.
I had known about the Weizmann Institute since my early medical school days. Many of my favorite scientific papers originated from its researchers. I discovered that Weizmann offered an excellent environment for Ph.D. students, so I reached out to one of my dream labs to inquire about the possibility of joining. I planned a trip to Israel and requested an interview during my visit. I still recall the exhilaration of stepping onto the Weizmann campus for the first time. Fortunately, I was welcomed into the group as a visiting student, and two months later, I officially began as a Ph.D. candidate. It might not have been the most opportune time to move to Israel (I arrived right after the war started), but I was eager to embark on this new chapter.
Since then, each day has been a journey of discovery. Experiments often yield disappointing results, but I believe that both successes and failures bring me closer to unraveling the complexities of metabolism. When something intriguing emerges, it can captivate me for days, even weeks. I feel incredibly privileged to spend my days pursuing what I love.
And so, my journey continues, with much still ahead. To be continued!
