In this Q&A, you’ll meet Shota Shibata, PhD, a postdoctoral research fellow in the lab of Mouro Pinto, PhD, MSc, in the Center for Genomic Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital where he is studying somatic repeat instability in repeat expansion diseases such as Huntington's disease.
When not studying the repeat's secrets, Shota enjoys spending time with his children, especially during summer when they go searching for small creatures and collecting insects (butterflies being his particular favorite).
Meet Mass General's POD People!
This year’s Celebration of Science at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) started with a poster session that featured 250+ posters from research staff and trainees. From this impressive group, MGH judges selected 24 finalists to give a brief oral presentation on their paper. From those finalists, 12 Poster of Distinction winners were selected.
Each of the winners received $1,000 that they can use to support travel to a scientific conference or meeting. In this series, you’ll meet the 2025 Poster of Distinction winners (who we have affectionately nicknamed the POD People) and learn more about them and their research.
Can you give us a quick elevator pitch for your poster?
Our research identifies PMS1, a mismatch repair gene, as a promising therapeutic target for Huntington's Disease.
We have demonstrated that knocking out PMS1 in mouse models of Huntington’s disease significantly suppresses somatic CAG repeat expansion, reduces mutant huntingtin protein accumulation, and rescues transcriptional dysregulation without increasing cancer risk.
What inspired this research?
Our lab's CRISPR-based screening identified PMS1 as one of the modifier genes of somatic repeat instability, yet its precise function remained poorly understood.
We were particularly drawn to PMS1 because, unlike other mismatch repair genes, it presents a lower oncogenic risk, making it an ideal candidate for a therapeutic target with potentially less adverse effects.
If someone's new to this topic, what's one key takeaway they should walk away with?
Huntington's Disease is caused by expanded CAG repeats in the HTT gene that continue to expand over time within the patient's body, with different rates in different tissues and cells.
By targeting mismatch repair genes like PMS1, we may be able to slow or stop this expansion process, potentially delaying disease onset and progression without increasing cancer risk.
Was there a moment where things didn't go as planned? How did you navigate it?
Most things don't go exactly as planned, but unexpectedness is the source of interesting findings.
We found it interesting to see unexpected differences of heterozygous PMS1 knockout effect across tissues.
It had strong effects in the striatum but limited impact in the liver, suggesting tissue-specific differences in PMS1's effect on instability.
What’s a fun or surprising fact about your research not included in your poster?
I created a plot to make our RNA-seq assessment more intuitive, which coincidentally resembled the shape of a swallowtail butterfly.
I was very excited that I called it a "butterfly plot" and wanted to include it on the poster, but after getting a lot of feedback that it was difficult to understand, sadly it was left out.
If you could invite one scientist living or historical to view your poster, who would it be and why?
I would like to invite Paul Modrich, who won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for elucidating the DNA mismatch repair (MMR) mechanism.
I'm eager to hear his insights on PMS1's role within the MMR pathway.
I'm also interested in his perspectives on the biological significance of functional redundancy among MMR genes, and the balance between cancer prevention and somatic instability suppression.
What's your go to order at a coffee shop?
I love coffee! But since I drink it all day at MGH, I rarely visit coffee shops. When I do go to a shop, I prefer a dark roast black coffee!
Be honest—how many tabs do you have open (on average) per day?
Around 30! I have about 10 permanent tabs for sites I use daily, but just like CAG repeats, they tend to expand throughout the day. I usually reset when they exceed 40~50.
What's your go-to karaoke song?
I have never been to karaoke in Boston (is it as popular here as it is in Japan?). I actually try not to listen to music during experiments, but Yo-Yo Ma's Libertango is really wonderful (though it’s instrumental)!
What's your most-used emoji?
☺️and🙃. But to be honest, I'm not entirely sure what 🙃 really means!
Research at Mass General Brigham
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