Ery Odette Fukushima, Ph.D.
Subdecana de la Escuela de Ciencias Agropecuarias y Agroindustriales
- efukushima@yachaytech.edu.ec
Biography
Biography
Ph.D. and M.Sc. in Sciences from Yokohama City University, Japan, as a Nippon Foundation scholar, and B.Sc. (Hons.) in Biology from Universidad Mayor de San Andrés (UMSA), Bolivia.
She built her career over a decade at the Department of Biotechnology of Osaka University, Japan, as a tenure-track Assistant Professor and later tenured Associate Professor; she has been a Visiting Associate Professor there since 2018. In Ecuador she has held tenured Associate Professorships at IKIAM and Universidad San Francisco de Quito.
Her work focuses on the biosynthesis of plant specialized metabolites: triterpenoids and saponins and their production through synthetic biology and metabolic engineering, a line that has yielded two Japanese patent applications. She has led competitively funded national and international projects and has supervised numerous undergraduate, master’s and doctoral theses in Japan and Ecuador.
Research interests
– Biosynthesis of specialized metabolites: functional characterization of the enzymes: cytochrome P450s (CYP716, CYP72, CYP88), oxidosqualene cyclases and NADPH-cytochrome P450 reductases, behind the chemical diversity of triterpenoids and saponins.
– Synthetic biology and metabolic engineering: reconstruction of plant biosynthetic pathways in yeast and heterologous plant hosts to produce rare and bioactive triterpenoids, including rational enzyme design.
– Sustainable valorization of biodiversity: chemical and functional study of species from the Amazon, the Galápagos Islands and the Andes, and green extraction with natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) applied to agro-industrial residues.
Current research projects
SACHA WARMI — Guardians of the Living Pharmacy of the Napo. A community ethnomedicine laboratory: micropropagation of threatened medicinal species and preparation of plant-based products with green solvents, built on the knowledge of Kichwa midwives and elders.
Selected publications
1. Vo N. N. Q., Nomura Y., Muranaka T., Fukushima E. O. (2019). Structure–activity relationships of pentacyclic triterpenoids as inhibitors of cyclooxygenase and lipoxygenase enzymes. Journal of Natural Products 82(12):3311–3320.
2. Srisawat P., Fukushima E. O., Yasumoto S., Robertlee J., Suzuki H., Seki H., Muranaka T. (2019). Identification of oxidosqualene cyclases from the medicinal legume tree Bauhinia forficata. New Phytologist 224(1):352–366.
3. Fukushima E. O., Seki H., Sawai S., Suzuki M., Ohyama K., Saito K., Muranaka T. (2013). Combinatorial biosynthesis of legume natural and rare triterpenoids in engineered yeast. Plant and Cell Physiology 54:740–749.
4. Seki H., Sawai S., Ohyama K., Mizutani M., Ohnishi T., Sudo H., Fukushima E. O., Aoki T., Saito K., Muranaka T. (2011). Triterpene functional genomics in licorice for identification of CYP72A154 involved in the biosynthesis of glycyrrhizin. The Plant Cell 23(11):4112–4123.
5. Fukushima E. O., Seki H., Ohyama K., Ono E., Umemoto N., Mizutani M., Saito K., Muranaka T. (2011). CYP716A subfamily members are multifunctional oxidases in triterpenoid biosynthesis. Plant and Cell Physiology 52:2050–2061.
