Event Details

18^th September at 12:00
Onsite event
in Presidentti auditorium, BioCity
Autumn 2025 program

Prof. Hiroki Ueda, University of Tokyo, Japan
Why do we sleep? The role of calcium and phosphorylation in sleep

Host: Diana Lehotina (diana.lehotina@utu.fi)

Coffee and sandwich served at 11:45, first come first serve!

Six PhD researchers and early-career postdocs are welcome to have a lunch and discuss with Prof. Ueda after the seminar. This is a great possibility to learn hosting skills in a friendly environment and create connections for future. Everyone is welcome to join, BioCity Turku will offer the lunch.

If you got interested, please send an email to biocityturku@bioscience.fi

What’s one thing every human does? Sleep. Professor Ueda, a world-reowned neuroscientist at the University of Tokyo, is at the forefront of uncovering the secrets behind this sacred process — why do we need sleep, and how does our brain regulate it? What makes us fall asleep and to wake up? What are “wake-promoting substances”? Is there a “SOS switch” that cancels sleep under emergency conditions? To tackle these questions, the lab invented cutting-edge technologies, including CUBIC, a groundbreaking whole-brain and whole-body tissue clearing and imaging methods and triple-CRISPR method, a next-generation genetic approach enabling one-step creation of knockout and knock-in mice without the need for breeding. Their work led to the WISE model (Wake Inhibition, Sleep Enhancement), a new hypothesis proposing that deep sleep – rather than wakefulness – strengthens neuronal connections. The model also explains why chronic sleep deprivation can contribute to depression and why some fast-acting antidepressants increase deep sleep activity. As the professor will share the group’s research on sleep health, we suggest you to join this lecture and gain new insights into your own sleep!

Selected publications

Wang Y, Cao S, Tone D, Fujishima H, Yamada RG, Ohno RI, Shi S, Matsuzawa K, Yada S, Kaneko M, Sakamoto H, Onishi T, Ukai-Tadenuma M, Ukai H, Hanashima C, Hirose K, Kiyonari H, Sumiyama K, Ode KL, Ueda HR. Postsynaptic competition between calcineurin and PKA regulates mammalian sleep-wake cycles. Nature. 2024 Dec;636(8042):412-421

Kon K, Ode KL, Mano T, Fujishima H, Takahashi RR, Tone D, Shimizu C, Shiono S, Yada S, Matsuzawa K, Yoshida SY, Yoshida Garçon J, Kaneko M, Shinohara Y, Yamada RG, Shi S, Miyamichi K, Sumiyama K, Kiyonari H, Susaki EA, Ueda HR. Cortical parvalbumin neurons are responsible for homeostatic sleep rebound through CaMKII activation. Nat Commun. 2024 Jul 18;15(1):6054

Ueda HR, Ertürk A, Chung K, Gradinaru V, Chédotal A, Tomancak P, Keller PJ. Tissue clearing and its applications in neuroscience. Nat Rev Neurosci. 2020 Feb;21(2):61-79

Murakami TC, Mano T, Fujishima H, Konno A, Watanabe TM, Hirai H, Ueda HR. Advanced CUBIC tissue clearing for whole-organ cell profiling. Nat Protoc. 2019 Dec;14(12):3506-3537

Susaki EA, Tainaka K, Perrin D, Kishino F, Tawara T, Watanabe TM, Yokoyama C, Onoe H, Eguchi M, Yamaguchi S, Abe T, Kiyonari H, Shimizu Y, Miyawaki A, Yokota H, Ueda HR. Whole-brain imaging with single-cell resolution using chemical cocktails and computational analysis. Cell. 2014 Apr 24;157(3):726-39

General information

• You can download and save all the autumn 2025 FoS-seminars to your calendar from here: https://seafile.utu.fi/d/44a70f80ac1e46a9ad0a/
• Registration is not needed, participation list is circulated in the audience
• If you are a student and later wish to get a certificate of attendance from the Frontier of Science seminars, print out the seminar diary and after the seminar ask the BioCity coordinator to sign it https://seafile.utu.fi/d/44a70f80ac1e46a9ad0a/
• Please note that any audio or video recording of the seminars is strictly forbidden.
• Autumn 2025 image credits to Kari Kaunisto: Sahlberg family collections, Biodiversity unit, University of Turku