On August 1st 2014, Dr. Mami Oikawa, Postdoctoral Researcher in the Bioresource Engineering Division, has won the Journal of Reproduction and Development (JRD) Outstanding Paper Award for her paper "RNAi-mediated Knockdown of Xist Does Not Rescue the Impaired Development of Female Cloned Mouse Embryos".
The award is given to the first authors of the papers that showed the most outstanding research outcomes during the volume year. It is given to three or four people every year.

    >> Photos (Bioresource Engineering Division Website)

Main Findings of the Paper
We have previously found that the birth rates of males cloned from somatic cells were remarkably increased following treatment of cloned embryos with siRNA against Xist. (Research Highlight March 16, 2012) We then examined whether the same could be true with females. As expected, Xist RNA expression was repressed, but the birth rates were not significantly improved.
There may be some sex-related difference in the Xist-dependency in the embryonic development.

Reference
Mami OIKAWA, Shogo MATOBA, Kimiko INOUE, Satoshi KAMIMURA, Michiko HIROSE, Narumi OGONUKI, Hirosuke SHIURA, Michihiko SUGIMOTO, Kuniya ABE, Fumitoshi ISHINO and Atsuo OGURA.
"RNAi-mediated Knockdown of Xist Does Not Rescue the Impaired Development of Female Cloned Mouse Embryos". Journal of Reproduction and Development, 2013, doi:10.1262/jrd.2012-195