Fuminori Tanizawa
PhD Student, Stanford Immunology fuminori [at] stanford [dot] edu fuminoritanizawa.com Google ScholarORCID
Updated September 2026
Education
Sep 2025 – Present
Stanford University
Ph.D. in Immunology, School of Medicine · Stanford, CA
- Track: Computational & Systems Immunology
- GPA 3.99 / 4.00
- Qualifying Examination Part 1 passed (Jun 2026)
Aug 2021 – May 2025
Harvey Mudd College
B.S. in Mathematical and Computational Biology · Claremont, CA
- Concentration: Environmental Analysis
- GPA 3.93 / 4.00 · High Distinction · Dean’s List (all semesters)
- Mindlin Prize for Best Senior Thesis Research
- Departmental Honors in Biology, Computer Science, and Humanities, Social Sciences & the Arts
Research Experience
Jun 2026 – Present
Jagannathan Lab · Stanford University School of Medicine
Graduate Researcher, Doctoral Dissertation Research · Stanford, CA
Dr. Prasanna Jagannathan, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine
Studying how repeated malaria exposure shapes the receptors on natural killer cells, and how this affects antibody-dependent immunity and vaccine responses in children in Uganda.
- Immunology
- Global health
Sep 2025 – Jun 2026
Stanford University School of Medicine
Rotation Student, Immunology Ph.D. Program · Stanford, CA
Jagannathan, Egan, and Blish Laboratories
Three rotations across infectious disease and human immunology — parasite biology, host–pathogen interaction, and computational analysis of immune responses.
Aug 2024 – May 2025
Hur Lab · Harvey Mudd College
Senior Thesis Student · Claremont, CA
Dr. Jae Hur, Department of Biology
Proposed and led an independent project on how the mitochondrial protease ClpXP affects innate immunity in Drosophila. Awarded the Mindlin Prize for Best Senior Thesis Research.
- Immunology
- Aging
May 2024 – Aug 2024
Mugnier Lab · Johns Hopkins University
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow · Baltimore, MD
Dr. Monica Mugnier, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology
Developed methods to sample fluid from organs of infected mice and found lower antibody levels outside the bloodstream — a possible driver of antigenic variation in Trypanosoma brucei.
- Immunology
- Parasitology
Sep 2023 – May 2024
Schulz Lab · Harvey Mudd College
Undergraduate Researcher · Claremont, CA
Dr. Danae Schulz, Department of Biology
Built an RNAi system against the chromatin protein EAF6 to study life-cycle differentiation in T. brucei; contributed to work published in mSphere (2026).
- Parasitology
- Gene regulation
May 2023 – Aug 2023
Srinivasan Lab · Scripps Research
Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow · La Jolla, CA
Dr. Supriya Srinivasan, Department of Neuroscience
Built tissue-specific rescue constructs and a CRISPR knockout of the metabolic regulator hlh-11 in C. elegans.
- Genetics
- Metabolism
Jan 2023 – Apr 2023
Google Research
CS Research Mentorship Program Fellow · Remote
Dr. Albert Cohen
Selective mentorship program in computational and bioinformatics research practice.
May 2022 – Aug 2022
Monteiro Lab · National University of Singapore
Amgen Asia Scholar · Singapore
Dr. Antónia Monteiro, Department of Biological Sciences
Showed that butterfly larvae can learn new host-plant odor preferences and pass them to the next generation.
- Behavior
- Evolution
2021 – 2022
Harvey Mudd College
Undergraduate Researcher, PoSM Laboratory · Claremont, CA
Biophysics of cone snail predation and venom delivery.
Jul 2018 – Apr 2021
Takemoto Lab · Shizuoka University — JST Global Science Campus
Visiting High-School Researcher · Shizuoka, Japan
Dr. Hiroyuki Takemoto, Research Institute of Green Science and Technology
Led a two-year independent project on sleep and odor preference in Drosophila, building custom apparatus; first-author paper in Scientific Reports.
- Behavior
- Neuroscience
Publications
mSphere. 2026. doi:10.1128/msphere.00021-26
Sleep contributes to preference for novel food odours in Drosophila melanogaster
Scientific Reports. 2021. doi:10.1038/s41598-021-88967-1
Presentations
Characterizing the Effect of the Extravascular Environment on Trypanosoma brucei Antigenic Diversity
Johns Hopkins Career, Academic, and Research Experiences for Students (C.A.R.E.S.) Symposium, Baltimore, MD, July 2024.
Transgenerational Inheritance of Learned Odor Preferences in Bicyclus anynana
2022 Amgen Scholars Asia Symposium, Singapore, August 2022.
Sleep and Novel Odor Preference in Drosophila melanogaster
Biophysical Society of Japan Annual Meeting, Japan (Virtual), September 2020.
Sleep Deprivation Alters Food Odor Preference in Drosophila melanogaster
Animal Behavior Society Annual Meeting 2020, Virtual (USA), July 2020.
Honors & Fellowships
Fellowships & Scholarships
- 2025–present Stanford Baker Fellow Ph.D. fellowship, Stanford University
- 2025–2027 Ezoe Memorial Recruit Foundation Scholar (Japan) Full-ride Ph.D. fellowship ($95K/year)
- 2021–2025 Tadashi Yanai Foundation Scholar (Japan) Full-ride undergraduate fellowship ($115K/year)
- 2018–2025 Masason Foundation Scholar (Japan) Full-ride fellowship
Research Fellowships
- 2024 BSI-SIP Scholar, Johns Hopkins University Summer research fellowship, School of Medicine
- 2023 Ben Huppe ‘14 Memorial Fellowship, Harvey Mudd College Summer research grant (research at Scripps Research)
- 2022 Amgen Scholar, National University of Singapore
Awards
- 2025 Mindlin Prize for Best Senior Thesis Research, Harvey Mudd College
- 2025 High Distinction, Harvey Mudd College
- 2025 Departmental Honors in Biology, Computer Science, and Humanities, Social Sciences & the Arts, Harvey Mudd College
- 2021–2025 Dean’s List (all semesters), Harvey Mudd College
- 2020 Grand Prize and Minister of Health, Labour and Welfare Award, National High School Biology Summit (Japan) Best Presentation Award (highest judging score)
- 2020 Grand Prize and Minister of Education (MEXT) Award, JST Global Science Campus National Research Presentation (Japan)
Skills
- Immunology
- High-parameter & spectral flow cytometry
- ELISA
- PBMC isolation & whole-blood processing
- infection & survival models
- Molecular biology
- PCR & RT-qPCR
- cloning & Gibson assembly
- CRISPR/Cas9 (sgRNA & HDR template design)
- inducible RNAi (Tet-On / GeneSwitch)
- Western blot
- SDS-PAGE
- BCA assay
- immunoprecipitation
- Imaging & cell culture
- Fluorescence & confocal microscopy
- immunofluorescence
- parasite culture & electroporation
- P. falciparum culture
- Animal work
- Mouse handling
- IV/IP injection
- cardiac puncture
- perfusion
- tissue harvest
- fly & worm genetics
- lifespan & behavioral assays
- Computational
- R
- Python
- MATLAB
- FlowJo
- statistics & data visualization
- bioinformatics pipelines
- BLAST
- Git
- LaTeX
- C++
- Java
- Organisms & samples
- Primary human samples (PBMCs / whole blood)
- Plasmodium falciparum (malaria parasite)
- Trypanosoma brucei (African trypanosome)
- Mus musculus (mouse)
- Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly)
- Caenorhabditis elegans (roundworm)
- Bicyclus anynana (squinting bush brown butterfly)
- Languages
- English (bilingual)
- Japanese (native)