Employee Voice

Message

The Biosciences Department plays an important role in supporting the development of regenerative medicine here at CellBank. There are 3 Teams that make up Biosciences: the Production Team, the Quality Assurance Team, and the R&D Team. The Production Team handles the cultivation of our patients’ cells, and the Quality Assurance Team makes sure that those cultivated cells meet our standards for treatment. The R&D Team works on developing new cultivation methods and new technologies to help make regenerative treatments safe and accessible for even more patients. Cooperation in Bioscience is a key part of our regenerative medicine support system here at CellBank.

Regenerative medicine is still a young field, so it’s no surprise that we have a lot of young team members in the Biosciences Department. We’re a group of high energy professionals who constantly seek out new challenges in our work. Working at CellBank gives young scientists a chance to really contribute their ideas and their skills to society. The opportunity to apply what they’ve learned as students in a professional career motivates a lot of our young teammates to put their best selves forward as experts in regenerative medicine.

In Biosciences we welcome new team members who love to challenge themselves and want to be involved in an exciting new field where they can bring their skills to the table and grow as a person while helping patients all around the country. Supporting society through regenerative medicine is what we pride ourselves in here at CellBank, and the energy of our young teammates is truly valuable in providing the best care that we can as a medical corporation.

Member of the Board of Directors and Head of Biosciences at CellBank
Takumi Yajima

What Do You Do At Cellbank?

As a member of the Production Team in the Biosciences Department I spend most of my time cultivating cells for patients. Other than cell cultivation I also help with paperwork and validation for business improvement.

I’m also an Assistant Supervisor, so making sure that everything is running smoothly on the cultivation floor is also a big part of my daily work. All cells are unique, so we have to make sure that we have the right conditions to cultivate high-quality cells for each and every one of our patients.

What Do You Like About Working At Cellbank?

I really enjoy being able to use what I learned in school in my work. When I was in college I studied cell biology and wanted to pursue a career in cell research, but after I graduated I ended up taking a job in a completely different field. I really regretted that decision and eventually decided to change jobs and ended up getting an opportunity to work at CellBank. I love being able to work with cells every day, and even the things I have to do outside of cell cultivation as part of my job are really interesting. Working at CellBank has been very fulfilling, and I think this job has really helped me grow not only as a professional but also as an individual. I’ve had a lot of opportunities to advance my career at CellBank, and now I get to help oversee cell cultivation as an Assistant Supervisor. There are so many opportunities to learn on the job, especially when you first start out. I got to try a lot of new things for the first time while working at CellBank, making mistakes and building my skills doing what I love.

WHAT STANDS OUT TO YOU ABOUT YOUR WORK？

Probably the daily cultivation process. Every cell is different, so you have to adapt to new situations all the time to make sure you’re cultivating the highest quality cells. The cultivation process can take a while to get the hang of at first, but after you start working with cells every day you eventually figure out how to keep everything going smoothly. We also work with a wide variety of cells at CellBank, so you’re always learning new things.

A Cell Cultivation is still a pretty rare job to have, but it’s really fulfilling getting to work in such a specialized field.

What Do You Do At Cellbank?

My job is to cultivate dermal fibroblasts for regenerative skin treatments. I usually spend most of my day doing cultivation work in our CPC. As a Cultivation Specialist my job is to cultivate and preserve cells from patient tissue samples. I also do a lot of paperwork related to cultivation, and this year I also got to help train some of our new team members.

What’s The Most Interesting Thing About Working At Cellbank？

Each patient’s cells are different, so we have to constantly adapt the cultivation process to make sure we’re providing them with the best cells for treatment. We also have to make sure the liquid nitrogen for cell preservation is always at -196 °C so we don’t lose any cells. It can be stressful at times, but it’s always worth it to hear that we didn’t have any losses at our monthly meetings. The Biosciences Team is also really diverse, and it’s honestly inspiring to work with people from so many different career backgrounds.

What Are Your Goals For Your Future At Cellbank?

I really want to learn more and be more involved in making CellBank better, especially since we play such an important part in making regenerative medicine accessible.

What Do You Do At Cellbank?

I work on cultivating dermal fibroblasts as part of the Production Team. I’ve learned the ins and outs of the cultivation process and passed the test that lets me work as a Cultivation Specialist, and now I’m moving onto the next step of my training where I’ll learn how to manage paperwork, take cells out of cryopreservation and observe them to make sure everything is in order before sending them off for treatment. It definitely takes a lot of practice, but I really want to get everything down so I can be a good Cultivation Specialist. After this I’ll start learning how to refine platelet-rich plasma and how to cultivate adipose-derived stem cells, so I think I’ll have a pretty well-rounded skill set once I finish my training.

What Made You Want To Work For Cellbank?

I majored in microbiology in college and really wanted to find a technical, specialized job where I could use the skills I learned as a student, so I was interested in a career in regenerative medicine and cell cultivation. I didn’t have any experience in the field, but I thought that CellBank would be a good place for me to apply my skills in a way that would help people. I also heard that there were a lot of other new graduates working in the Biosciences Team, so that really motivated me to apply.

How Did You Adjust To Working At Cellbank?

I mostly learned the different processes of cell cultivation by shadowing more experienced specialists, practicing, and taking tests. I also took a lot of notes and tried to visualize the work itself which helped me learn things pretty smoothly. During training I also did written reports which helped me get a deeper understanding of the cultivation process itself and how the different reagents used in cell cultivation actually work. Making sure everything in the work environment is sterile is a very important part of cultivation, and getting advice from other specialists helped me become more confident in my work. Since you’re working with patients’ cells you have to be very mindful. Now that I’m learning how to manage cultivation paperwork now that means doing careful reviews to make sure everything is in order and there are no errors.