Episode 4: Dr. Hironori Funabiki

In this episode, we meet Dr. Hiro Funabiki, a Head of Lab at The Rockefeller University who researches how cells transfer the right number of chromosomes during cell division and what happens when that process goes wrong. Beyond the lab, we learn about how a high school swim coach shaped Dr. Funabiki’s thinking about science, his favorite museums, and why asking questions teaches you more than just the answers.

Beyond the Lab is produced by RockEDU Science Outreach and was recorded during the 2024 Summer Science Research Program (SSRP). To learn more, visit rockefeller.edu/outreach.

Please rate, subscribe, and share this with anyone who might like hearing about scientists and their stories!

Note: This transcript has been lightly edited for clarity.

Jacob: Should we get started? 

Leora: Yeah! 

Hana: Okay. This is exciting. 

Hiro: I think [a] great thing about science is to set the questions or goal by yourself. It’s an amazing game in a sense.

Hana: Hi everyone! We’re Hana,

Leora: Leora, 

Jacob: and Jacob, 

Hana: And this is, 

Hana and Leora: Beyond the La–

Jacob: Wait wait–

Leora: I know I said it– 

Jacob: Sorry. 

Leora: Okay go again. Welcome to Beyond the Lab, the podcast where we discuss all things not science with the world’s leading scientists. Today we’re honored to host Dr. Hiro Funabiki, Head of the Funabiki Lab at The Rockefeller University.

Dr. Funabiki’s research delves into the mechanisms by which cells ensure accurate chromosome numbers, detect abnormal chromosomes and foreign DNA, and adapt to these irregularities or eliminate them. The Funabiki Lab aims to understand the molecular basis for cancers and other diseases. Thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Funabiki! 

Hiro: Thank you, and yes. Pleased to [be] having this opportunity. 

Hana: But first, an icebreaker. Dr. Funabiki, can you please tell us what your favorite flower is? 

Hiro: My goodness! I never thought about it. I would say cherry blossoms. That is actually a– I would say [a] national flower for Japan. 

Hana: Great! 

Hiro: And it’s whenever I see that cherry blossom, it really [makes] me rejuvenated. A sign of the spring and new life. It’s so beautiful.

Hana: I agree. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think “hana” means cherry blossom in Japanese, is that right? 

Hiro: Yeah “hana” means, in general, the flower. 

Hana: Flower. Flower. Got it. And what about you, Jacob? Do you have a favorite flower? 

Jacob: I love dahlias, and it also happens to be that my mom’s name is Dahlia, so we have, 

Hana: Oh, that’s pretty! 

Jacob: dahlias sometimes just like in the house, because my mom likes that. She says, “oh, they’re named after me.” 

Hana: Nice. What about you, Leora? 

Leora: So I’ve always been obsessed with tulips, ever since I was younger, and in first grade I used to, on all my work, I used to draw tulips around the whole page. And so my parents, when they came in for conferences, they drew tulips on their own letter to me. And yeah, it was very cute.

Hana: That’s so nice. For me, I really like hyacinths because they just smell really nice. So that’s probably my favorite. 

Jacob: So, now that we’ve done the icebreaker, we wanna move on to our first kind of larger topic that we wanna talk about in this podcast, which is your childhood and you did not grow up in America. Can you tell us a little bit about that? 

Hiro: I was born in Kyoto, Japan, and I grew up [there] until the end of my PhD. And I stayed with my parents because my parents’ house is just two minutes away from Kyoto University where I went for college and grad school. My father was [on] the faculty at the Kyoto University and I lived with my mother’s grandparents. And my grandfather, who we lived with, was also a chemist and was a professor. And so I was born in a very academic environment and that really influenced my childhood and so forth. 

My father had [a] one year sabbatical opportunity in London, and he brought the family to London for one year when I was seven years old, and that had a huge impact [on me]. During one year my father brought the family to travel a lot–in Paris, Rome, Florence, and Switzerland, Iran. And so I wonder whether he could have done any kind of work.

I was exposed to many of the amazing museums and natural history museums. And one of my favorite[s] in London was the British Museum, where I was really attracted to the mummies and also the Natural History Museum and the amazing fossils of the dinosaurs, which I never saw in Japan. But then, I had to go back and then [I] totally forgot my English. But still I got familiar with this kind of English and so forth, and I just wanted to be good at English. And luckily I went to the mission school in middle school and high school which had a very rigorous English curriculum.

I still hesitate to say that after living in the United States more than 25 years, my accent [is] being improved, but still I think in the Japanese standard we had a very strong education in English and that really helped me to get the tickets to get outside [of] Japan. But when I was a younger kid, before middle school, I had several health issues and had pneumonia twice. And I was not really athletic, but I realized I was [a] very competitive spirit. And I was bullied when I was in elementary school, and I [have] a scar, I think [on] this side and the, because I was pushed out from the top of [a] stage,

Hana: Oh no! 

Hiro: and cut. I hit the corner of the piano. I almost lost my eyesight, it was that close enough.

Hana: That’s terrible. 

Hiro: But kind of interestingly, out of that instant, I realized there’s [an] opportunity to get into this mission school, which is a high academic school. And I had to prepare [for] my entrance exam and I [studied] hard, and then I became actually very competitive in terms of academic performance in school and my classmates started to respect me. And then luckily I got into this school and then I realized that I was very lucky to see the school teacher who was also the coach for the swimming team. And he kind of convinced us, many of us, that building the body is very important for whatever you want to do in your career.

So I thought that I could swim, so I entered the swimming club or swimming team. It was really hard and difficult. And I was very lucky enough to find that I was a decent backstroker. I was terrible at the freestyle and terrible at the breast stroke, but I had some natural kind of capacity to backstroke and so I was competitive in the Kyoto Regional.

And so that [had] a great influence that I feel developed my confidence. And then [I] realized during training– I learned how to make pace [in] the training, and [that] you can’t push yourself all the time. You need some cycle of pushing yourself and taking a rest. And that made me– really helped [me] to think about and plan how to spend my days, or spend my years and during my career and so forth. And indeed my coach was true that because I built up my body during that time and had to do training, I felt that I [was] healthy enough to do challenging study. Which is research–which is very competitive, and also you have to work hard. And I can deal with that. 

Jacob: That’s so interesting. 

Hana: It made you more resilient. 

Hiro: Yes. Yeah. 

Jacob: It’s interesting that in your mind, it was only once you had become– once you could become physically strong, that you could also be competitive mentally too.

Hiro: Yeah. So I think that this sport was very, in a sense, simple, right? And swimming is [an] individual kind of sport. So you can just fight against yourself and you can just chase against your best time, right? I’m still thinking about it, during the training period that you have to– there’s a menu of training–like 15 meters by 30 times and so forth. And each time you have [an] interval, and the resting time, and something like that, right? So I think of an analogy in my own research when I try to publish it–where we are and how much we can push at the moment. This is good, but maybe not at the moment. Or at this time, we can just take a rest; this time, we really push hard. So that’s kind of a thing. I make [an] analogy and I think that really helps me. 

Jacob: Yeah. And as a child, were there any potential careers that you wanted to look into other than science that interested you? 

Hiro: Because I was sick and tended to have lots of health issues, and also had asthma and some allergic cases, I frequently visited the hospital. And then one of the many doctors said to me, “oh maybe you wanna be a medical doctor”. I thought about that when I was in middle school, but I realized that what I was thinking [about for] the most time during my childhood was philosophy questions about what is consciousness, [how] the brain works, how evolution works. And I [was] getting more interested about natural science and how this universe works or develops and so forth. And also, I knew that I wanted to make mistakes and I don’t want to be so responsible [for] other people’s life. And if you become a medical doctor [or] physician, you have to be responsible for other patients. They cannot make mistakes. And I just wanted to be doing something [where] mistakes can be allowed. That is the natural opposite, and I think that research, particularly academia, is [the] perfect kind of the job for me.

Jacob: Yeah. In your childhood and going into teenhood, you talked a little bit about your journey of learning English. And I know that a lot of people who don’t grow up in America and who want to learn English, they use different types of American media to teach themselves. Did you use any type of American media, like TV shows or movies that you really enjoyed, to learn English? 

Hiro: I loved many kinds of music when I was in high school. I love heavy metal like Ozzy Osbourne, but also I enjoyed The Beatles and Billy Joel. But yeah, I think later [when] I got into graduate school I realized I really had to learn more English and started to read novels. I read Jurassic Park and that was quite an intersection between real science and science fiction. So I learned a lot of [vocabulary] by reading mysteries and also scientific science fiction. 

Jacob: Wow. You learned scientific vocabulary by reading science fiction? 

Hiro: Well, it’s not necessarily science. Of course, scientific vocabulary I learned from reading the papers and so forth. But I think science fiction versus– Also I learned language in terms of [a] more conversational one and also some things out of my scientific field.

Jacob: Thank you so much. 

Hana: Yeah. And now for my favorite segment, Dr. Funabiki’s favorite things. So first we’d like to know about your favorite hobbies outside of the lab.

Hiro: I try many things and I fail, with so many types of hobbies and so forth, but I can tell you what I enjoy and the thing I like: cooking. 

Hana: Oh, great!

Hiro: You may not say that cooking is a hobby, tight? But I really like cooking. 

Hana: What is your favorite thing to cook? 

Hiro: Yeah, so that’s another thing, right? I like dumplings.

Hana: Nice. I love dumplings. 

Hiro: It is a nice kind of ritual and also kind of [a] meditation, and my family and friends really appreciate [it]. Cooking turkey at Thanksgiving is my job. And, 

Hana: It’s a big responsibility. 

Hiro: Yes. And [for] New Year in Japan, they have [a] special new year breakfast. It’s called Osechi-ryōri. There are many different kinds of dishes we have to cook. And I’m responsible for like five or six of them, and it’s a really joyful experience. 

Hana: Yeah. That’s a great reason to cook. 

Hiro: Yeah. I probably enjoy, besides [cooking], I’d say climbing. Which I’m kind of [a] fake climber, but this is because my wife is a really avid climber.

Hana: That’s so cool!

Hiro: So, I was trying to catch up, but I broke my arm, 

Jacob: Oh, no! 

Hiro: years ago. But I’m recently coming back and last weekend I think I made a great benchmark. 

Hana: Congratulations! 

Hiro: Yeah. So I was very happy about that. And maybe the third thing is that I love going to museums. As a scientist, I’ve had several opportunities to visit different cities all around the world. And then wherever I go, I would have a chance to go to check out the museum. And recently I visited Paris and London, and we had many chances to see museums. And [we] even went to Yale in March and they have a fantastic museum and I really like it. And also of course, in the city, the Metropolitan and MoMA and elsewhere. 

And the way I enjoy this museum is that I set some kind of quiz [for] myself. For example, I think recently my task [was] to find female artists in the museum, and who was the oldest female painter exhibiting [in the] museum and so forth. And you’re surprised at how few of them, but then I realized that there are. And then you start [to] learn histories of the individuals, and that there are some commonalities. And it’s a great way to track down art history. And it is not just the art style, but how human relationships and society evolve. And you learn that just [from] going to new museums and so forth. So that is a very fun activity that I enjoy. 

Hana: That’s so nice!

Jacob: Yeah, and I think you mentioned something there that maybe the listeners don’t really know, which is that as a scientist you actually get to be a traveler, you get to go to places for conferences. 

Hiro: Yeah. So I was very lucky that I realized that benefit of being [a] scientist from my father. And my father is very good at making friends [with] foreigners. And he brought his friends from the United States or Italy and we had some dinner together. And I thought it was cool to make friends from anywhere, right? And so not only [did] I have a chance to travel to other places, [but also to] meet the people there. And I was very fascinated to have a chance to go to visit China for the first time this spring, and I met many Chinese scientists as well as had a chance to talk to the local Chinese people and change how I view this country and so forth. But at the same time, we are very lucky to have students and scientists [from] all across the world here. And this is the kind of opportunity that I [would] never get if I stayed in Japan. 

Hana: Do you have a favorite movie? 

Hiro: Favorite movie? My goodness! Yeah, it’s one of the most difficult questions. But I tend to say Seven Samurai, [which was] done by famous Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa. It’s long, and black and white, and [it] is an amazing story about the Seven Samurai [who] helped this little farmers’ village who has to defend from these bandits. It’s about leadership and also responsibility, and how to just organize people and to defend this. And it’s really amazing storytelling and I really love it.

And another favorite Kurosawa movie [is] Rashomon. This is a story about a murder, and then I think four or five people who witness the murder. Each of them just explains what they see and they have a very different story to tell. And I’ve also experienced that in the lab or even [in] my friendships and family, that there are always some disputes and the ways to see the same thing can be very different, right? Different based on different perspectives. So I tend to hear all different aspects, seeing society as a story and so forth. 

Leora: Great! So now we’re gonna move on to questions about your current life. So can you tell us a little bit about your journey to Rockefeller and why you chose to work here?

Hiro: Ah! Yes so I moved to the United States when I was I think 28 or so. After finishing my PhD training in Kyoto University, I went to San Francisco, University of California, San Francisco, UCSF in the laboratory of Andrew Murray. He was a really amazing person. His science is so unique and I was a big fan of him. So then my boss Andrew moved to Harvard after four years, so I moved with him. So I drove cross country all by myself and it was really fun. At that time, I was working on this project, which I developed using Xenopus frog extracts and developed some methods to purify mitotic chromosomes. And luckily that turned out to be a very interesting story. And at that point I was not so sure whether I [could] be a lab head in the United States, but my PI, Andrew, encouraged me to apply and he convinced me I was competent. So I applied [to] several places and I was very lucky to get an offer from several places.

It was a very difficult decision I had to make. But in the end, I chose Rockeller because it gave [me]  the best offer. I didn’t have to teach–I really wanted to to focus on the research and Rockeller gave me the opportunity. And another important reason [was] New York. I found that this city attracts lots of aspiring people, with some energy, and I thought that there are lots of opportunities to meet great people here. And at that time I was single. So I really [thought about] the opportunity to meet people. And, it turned out, I think I was right. And now I really love living in New York and [it] never bores me. And I learn so many new things every year. 

Leora: So our podcast is geared towards younger students, either in high school and college, who are considering a career in science. So what advice would you give to them? 

Hiro:  I think [a] great thing about science is to set the questions or goal by yourself. It’s an amazing game in a sense. I’m sure that people enjoy games, right? Video games and so forth. but those games are– Other people set the task. But the world is just filled with so [many] mysteries, and you have [the] opportunity to discover that mystery by yourself.

And this is quite [an] amazing opportunity. You have only one opportunity to enjoy your life. And there are many things you can do to help other people, to make society [a] better place. If you think about what you can [do to] make [this society] a better place, or enjoy to make this society a better place… What I wanted to convince people is that this universe is just full of mystery. It is so beautifully organized. It’s amazing. So I really want everybody to understand how amazing this world is. But to be able to appreciate that, you need to learn, you need to be able to appreciate what the human society has done in terms of accumulation of knowledge and so forth.

So I think to make a long story short, ask questions by yourself. And set the question yourself. Usually there are answers. Just doing by yourself will help [you] appreciate the process. If you just access the Wikipedia page, you feel that you can access [the] knowledge, but you may not really appreciate [it] as an experience about this knowledge.

Leora: So is there anything we haven’t asked you, anything else you’d like to share? 

Hiro: Yeah. People may see scientists as geeks. They’re thinking about the research. But I think one of the reasons I wanted to be [a] scientist is [to] meet people. And meet people who can comfortably discuss facts, but also kind any kind of thing. I’m curious [about] anything, and I think scientists tend to be curious [about] anything. And so there are many things [you] can relate to, and then you gave us, and me this opportunity to talk about this kind of topic. I’m very happy to have this opportunity, that’s all. 

Jacob: Well, we were so happy to have you on the podcast.

Hana: Yeah, it was our pleasure! 

Leora: Thank you so much!

Hana: Thank you so much for joining us!

Jacob: Thank you for joining us, and see you next time on

In unison: Beyond the Lab!

Emily: Thanks to our interviewee, Dr. Hiro Funabiki, and thank you for listening. If you like what you heard, please share our podcast with family, friends, and anyone you know who loves science and stories of the people behind it. 

Beyond the Lab is a production of RockEDU Science Outreach at The Rockefeller University in New York City. It was produced and hosted by Hana, Leora, and Jacob during their participation in the Summer Science Research Program. It was also produced by Emily Costa and Laura Pellicer, with assistance from Lizzie Krisch. Our cover art was designed by Jeanne Garbarino, and our theme music is by Blue Dot Sessions. 

To learn more about Beyond the Lab or RockEDU, please visit www.rockefeller.edu/outreach. And thanks for listening!