Kenji Fukuda’s collaborative research project with Professor Shinya Ikeda at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
I visited Professor Ikeda’s laboratory from November 6th to 27th 2017. It is located in the basement of Babcock Hall, which was named in honor of S. M. Babcock who is famous for developing the milk lipid measurement protocol. On the opposite side of the corridor from his laboratory, is a room dedicated to food processing practices. You can smell something sweet, since it is laboratory that studies confectionary rheology. It is a very wonderful atmosphere. A dairy factory and milk products laboratory are also in the same building. The dairy factory is going to be rebuilt soon, but you can observe what is going on through a window on the second floor. If you are lucky, you may be able to taste a prototype of product, such as a new cheese, that they are developing in the laboratory.
An atomic force microscope (AFM) is the main piece of equipment in Professor Ikeda’s laboratory, which allows his team to do very-high-resolution scanning. I needed a rheometer and SEC-MALS, so I borrowed these instruments from other laboratories. This was possible because of Professor Ikeda’s preliminary negotiations and the kindness of his colleagues at CALS. Furthermore, the postdocs and students were very cooperative, which was a great help to me. I was impressed that several students listened intently to my lecture and asked several questions. All the scheduled experiments were successful and the stay passed quickly.
I plan to continue working to develop this collaboration and make it bigger and better in the future, which I hope will attract greater funding. I deeply appreciate all the assistance I received from all the people who have been involved in this project.
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- Entrance of Babcock Hall
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- Laboratory members