Mickie Takagi

Mickie Takagi

Scientific Researcher
Butantan Institute
Brazil

E-mail:mickie.takagi@butantan.gov.br

I graduated as a Bachelor in Chemistry (1984 – 1987) at Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, UNESP with “Respiratory studies of Thiobacillus ferroxidans strains” as course conclusion work. In 1994 I started to work as a Scientific Researcher - level I - at Instituto Butantan, which produces vaccines for children and sera against snakes accidents. In the beginning I was integrated in the project “Factor VIII from porcine plasma purification” to establish a process to purify factor V|III in a high degree to make it possible to be used by hemophilic patients. In 1998 I spent 10 months in Japan at the National Institute of Bioscience and Human Technology participating in the Industrial Biotechnology Program, working in the synthesis of biodegradable polymers and its characterization. In 1999, after returning to Brazil, and continuing work at Butantan I started Master- PhD studies in the Universidade de São Paulo (1999 – 2003) whose research title was “Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib) cultivation and polysaccharide purification” based on my Institutional Project related to vaccine development at Butantan. Later, in 2007, I have been to Germany for my Post- doc for one year, when I could start to study German and attended the International Management Course, besides my Scientific Project for post-doc at Helmholtz Zentrum für Infektionsforsuchung in the project “Up and downstream processes of Recombinant E.coli product attained in high cell densities”. Nowadays I still continue working at Butantan in the project for the development of vaccine production for human Health, whose the main topic is the scaling-up of production/purification of Hib polysaccharide, and its characterization to conjugate with tetanus toxoide in order to produce a Hib conjugated vaccine. The aim is to produce a pentavalent vaccine made up by DTP+HepB+Hib in liquid formulation and to be distributed worldwide. In parallel I am also working as supervisor/tutor for several students from Universidade de São Paulo to which I am linked through the Inter-units Post-graduation Program – ICP-IPT-Butantan.

Protein and polysaccharide production in the wild and genetically modified organism and, downstream protein and polysaccharide and its characterization for use in modern and innovative vaccines.