All right, hi as you can see, it's not only me this week. Welcome to our live stream. We have guests today I'm super happy about it. Hi, Maddie. Hi, Georgia So, yeah Back here another for another week and I'm live on a different day I usually go live on Fridays, so today's very special and also because we have guests So I'm super happy about that And yeah, if you are watching if you can see us if you can hear us Please just leave a high in the comments that would be really cool and where you're watching from I'm always really curious about where people are watching from and Yeah, I'm in South Korea My name is Linda from ITTT if you don't know me and I'm yeah About an hour and a half south of Seoul at the moment It's 6 30 on a Thursday evening and I think it's the same time where you are right Maddie and Georgia Same time and you are in Tokyo yeah super exciting and we just talked about the weather before we went live and it's raining in Tokyo, right? Very much. It is rainy season. It's rainy season. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's rainy season in Korea, too But today was a good day today was nice, but I think it's gonna rain again So we'll see how that goes. Oh, we have someone watching from Australia Cool yeah because Maddie and Georgia you are from Australia, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, where we're in Australia Where from a country town called King Roy it is the peanut capital of Australia That's why the name I guess. Yeah. Yeah, because I wanted to ask you about that. Okay interesting cool, okay because yeah, Georgia and Maddie are Going under the name globetrotting peanuts right on social media and you also have a blog Correct. Yes. Yes. So that's what we're gonna talk about today. Basically your experience of living abroad in Japan and You also took a Teflon T-Soul course from ITTT So that's how we kind of are connected. So that's really cool So thanks so much for taking the time today and doing this live session with me. It's super exciting Yeah, and so for everybody who's watching please don't forget to like and subscribe We're actually live on Facebook and we're live on YouTube at the same time. So that's really cool And yeah, please like and subscribe because we do go live every week I also have a colleague Lisa.  So you want to look out for that and What else yeah, there is also a 30% off Discount that we offer during our live also today very very special. So what you can do you can either scan that QR code in the upper right-hand corner or I'm gonna share a link so you can just apply second with that link Got it Okay, should be here now looks like this. So if you apply through this link you get 30% off a Teflon T-Soul course from ITTT. So yeah, that's a good deal And when did you take your Teflon course? When was it? End of last year. Oh, yeah, that's a long ago. Oh, yeah, cool. So you were already in Japan when you took it Yeah, we've already been at our jokes for about a year when we started the T-Soul course. Yes Got it cool. All right And you also prepared some really nice slides for us pictures that go along with what we're gonna talk about today So I think let me see You have intro slides, right? Do you want to jump into that? All right, cool. Oh, and at any time For anybody who's watching, please feel free to ask questions. That's why George and Maddie are here today They will answer your questions about what it's like teaching in Japan living in Japan in Tokyo and anything like that So at any time there's also gonna be a Q&A section at the end And yeah, let's get started All right, so Georgia Hello, I'm Georgia So I am a teacher already before I came to Japan. I was a high school teacher. I was teaching music and history mostly but In Australia you can kind of be thrown into anything So I've taught a bunch of other subjects English dance other things that I've been needed in Um, I love to travel. So I've done lots of travel Europe and Canada and the US We came to Japan on a family trip to visit Maddie When she was living here before and loved it And last year before corona we went to korea and it was amazing. We would love to come back and visit you guys Yes, please. Yes So, yeah, that's pretty much me. Yeah, I was a teacher in Australia for about four years before I came to Japan Cool. Okay, interesting. And how did you like korea? I'm sorry. Can you say that again? Oh, how did you like korea? Oh, we loved it so much just Um, you know, there are a lot of similarities to japan, but it's also very different at the same time Love culture all of the history. Um, yeah Yeah, it's just such a beautiful place would recommend to anyone to visit korea. It's amazing. Yeah. Yeah, awesome. Cool All right, and then we have maddie Okay, so that makes me maddie I'm the youngest sister Um, I actually don't have a teaching background. So I actually did um archaeology and japanese in my undergraduate degree and then Oh, did we lose you guys? Hi. Are you still there? Maybe we lost maddie and georgia. Let's give them a minute. Maybe the connection will come back All right, I think we're coming back. All right, there we are Oh, sorry. I didn't know what happened. Yeah, no problem. No problem um So, yes, I'm maddie. I don't know where I am. Hi again. Hi again Um, so I don't come from a teaching background. I did archaeology in japanese at university in my undergraduate So hence the interest in japan And then I went on to do a masters in museum studies and then within that I did a thesis on public programs and education in museum In museums. So that's kind of where the education interests came from Um, I haven't traveled as much as georgia yet. I was trying last year, but we all know how that worked out. Um, Yeah and then Work in museum and teaching piano Before I left for japan Awesome very very cool Awesome, I think someone you know is watching as well kelly pain Cool. Hi dad Cool and lots of other people saying hi Try japan is an amazing country to live and work been here for over 15 years now. Wow Yeah, awesome. Thanks so much for watching Very cool. Very cool. All right Okay, should we jump into some questions now? Oh, yeah So I prepared some questions, but uh, the viewers feel free to also ask your questions at any time So i'm just going to start off with my first one. So that is uh, Why did you choose to teach english in japan? Why do I know for baddie? Yeah, it's But what made you interested in japan though in the beginning? I was doing japanese in high school and I had the amazing opportunity to come here for a 10 day homestay That program school and I loved it Like it's just it's so different to australia that everything is exciting everything. It's new I'm a bit of a foodie. So the food is also great Um, so then I went on to study it in university And again that time I did a six month exchange here um, and again loved it And then a few years later I wanted to get some teaching experience like for the museum world and Japan was just a great place to do that because I loved it And then you brought your sister with you And then she decided to try it out. Basically, um I had finished um, I was kind of coming to the end of What I wanted to do at my school and I was looking at new opportunities overseas and then Maddie decided she maybe wanted to move to japan and I said I'll come too Cool, that's awesome. And so you do you apply like together or individually? Um, individually like in you you have to apply individually But you can put on your jet forms that You know someone else who is applying you or you have family Gotcha. Okay. So you see you both work for jet the jet program Okay, could you maybe talk a little bit about the jet program and like what does it stand for? What is it for people who don't know? Yeah, um, so the jet program is japan exchange of teaching. Um, and Um, basically Um, you are Employed as an ALT so an assistant language teacher. Um, you can also be employed as a cir I don't know what that stands for but basically you work at the board of education helping them Like documents and things so you have to have quite a high level of japanese for that position Then there are also sports. There's not a lot of them, but there are sports positions where you Are basically a PE teacher in english um So there's the three positions, but the most positions are ALTs We are both ALTs Basically you get put in A school or multiple schools um depending on where you're placed and You assist the teachers to teach english, but There is a saying in the jet program every situation is different and it's totally true We have lots of friends on the jet program and everyone's experience is completely different. So You might get to teach all of your classes by yourself and your Um, japanese teacher just helps you. You might just assist You might team teach like it's you might teach elementary. You might teach high school You might teach at seven schools might teach at one school. It totally depends on your placement. It's very Interesting. Okay, and do you teach at the same school? No, as each other. No Yeah, okay When we moved it get private schools in tokyo, we were lucky to get private schools in tokyo, but even then Like our jobs are still very different Um different schools. Yeah, for sure. Um and Being placed at a private school is not a common thing. It's mostly just in tokyo Most I was just gonna ask about that. Yeah, because I always thought the jet program is just public schools So it was until about five or six years ago There were not any jets in tokyo Um, because tokyo had other companies. It wasn't an issue trying to get alts to tokyo So the jet program was focused on the countryside areas But they brought jets into tokyo and private schools in tokyo um and so the tokyo jet experience is quite unique compared to other because Um, you have to find your own apartment. Whereas in the countryside, they give you an apartment things like that It's a very different life Gotcha. Okay. And how how do you like the jet program? Is that is it? Was it a good choice? I think it was we're we're really lucky as You know, we said every situation is different. So Although some people have some troubles and problems on jet We are really lucky that our schools are really good. They're very supportive of what we do So because of that, like I love the jet program Great. Yeah, and you listed here some pros and cons of the program. Do you want to maybe go through that? Yeah, so, I mean the probably one of the biggest pros Considering other alts and other alts companies in japan is the pay like the pay on the jet program is great So that's good when you have to afford to live in tokyo. Yeah, um That's you have a big support network like there are hundreds and like there are thousands of jets across the whole of japan So you find out you're in little community and there's lots of support Like procedures on the jet program because it's such an old program They have like mental health support and they have a lot of Places that you can go to if you are having issues Um, there's like you have prefectural advisors that you can reach out to if you have any issues So there's like a lot of different ways that jet supports you. Yeah, that's really awesome Hmm, and they do are now for further education. They do provide grants for things like T cells so we got a T cell grant in order to study with eye drivelty and For your japanese language proficiency tests once you get to a certain level. They can also help Um, subsidize or pay for your language proficiency test. Oh, wow Really helpful. Yeah, that is because but to join the jet program or to work through the jet program You don't have to know japanese, right? No It's obviously a plus for your application, but it's not necessary because You're not going to be teaching alone. You will have a japanese teacher with you And that's their job is to help with the japanese So you don't have to but it's very encouraged that you Um actively try to improve your japanese while you're here Yeah, okay, and I guess uh medis japanese is pretty good. How about georgia? Um, I have learned a lot since I've been here. I knew Pretty much zero japanese coming here. Um, but Being in a japanese school environment has helped a lot like My listening is a lot better because you just hear it all day and So that's really cool and your college colleagues teach you things Um, and you have manuals that jet give you to study and It's gotten a lot better. Yeah. Oh, have you taken any like official classes or not yet? So we started out taking our local city hall classes. You just it's like two dollars Um for an evening class run by volunteers and the two dollars. Wow Oh, that's so cheap. Wow So that was really cool. We did that for a while and then we started taking some japanese lessons at a local company Um as well. So and but matty does a lot of study by herself too. She's very good at that Yeah, oh cool. Do you think like, um Do can people get by only knowing english in japan is specifically in tokyo If you're in tokyo, you can and you know, we often hear of jets who have been here for you know, three or four years and still Can't speak japanese You know, it's it's up to each person what they want to do But you if you're in tokyo, but you definitely can get by so you have to kind of try extra hard to Make sure you're still learning Okay Trying to learn some though. It definitely makes your life easier Um, but you know, a lot of people speak a little english Enough to help you at most places Yeah, that's good. I think that's similar here in korea too. It's about the same especially in Seoul They're like people who live there for years and they don't know any korean And uh, but it helps it definitely helps. I actually really wanted to start learning japanese I started but it's so hard the writing system because there's three writing systems. I'm like, oh That's so hard Yes, even japanese people think they're writing Yeah, so that's really hard I just need to sit down and every day practice practice practice all the letters and then hopefully one day They'll stick Because I hear like the grammar like korean and japanese are actually quite similar I think that too Kind of interchangeably learn them pretty quickly like if you're Japanese if you japanese you can learn korean Yeah, but I actually bought yeah, I actually bought a book. I could show you real quick I bought a book for learning japanese in um korean And they have like all the grammar. Yeah, it's really fun It's probably too small to see but yeah I thought maybe that why because the grammar is so similar it makes more sense maybe to learn it With korean instead of like english I need to learn the writing system Yeah, wow good luck Yeah, we'll see I should take classes too though, but yeah It definitely helps I think Particularly because japanese has so many levels of formality That a lot of the textbooks teach you like really formal language, which is not particularly useful in everyday life So Lessons is really great because your teacher can say you wouldn't probably say that to someone, you know Unless they were like the emperor, so Here is the more casual way that you would probably say it to ordinary people Yeah Yeah, I see that Cool Okay, did we cover everything on this slide so far? um I think uh, I mean with the con I think so the ones are They can be positive too, you know like The fact that you can be placed anywhere in japan is really exciting and I know small communities who really love it so um and The fact that every situation is different is also really cool because you have a completely unique experience And you can kind of craft it yourself a lot of the times That's right. Yeah Yeah, I had a friend she taught um In japan with the jet program in okinawa, and she really loved it. It was great Yeah, she loved it. It was great. Yeah Okay, and next question So in what ways did your teflor t-cell course prepare you for teaching in japan? Well, I mean for me at least I you know, I didn't come from a teaching background. I didn't study education. So My t-cell course was really everything that I know about education now Um, but it was fantastic, especially for teaching english as a second language Like the little things like pronunciation um and grammar like I don't as Jets you don't necessarily have to teach grammar very often But what I do or I get a lot asks lots of questions about it That's really difficult to answer about english grammar because today we don't have to think about it So it was really really helpful for me to understand that and Also get ideas on activities and tasks that the kids can do to help them improve a lot as well. So It was really it really taught me everything. I know Yeah, great. And georgia since you came from a teaching background. Why did you decide to get teflor So I also don't know much about grammar um as a native speaker um and the education System that we went through we were not explicitly taught grammar. So, um It was really great to learn all of the terms for everything that you already know, um And be able to talk with teachers about it because they will often ask you questions Like is this sentence correct? Or if it's not correct, why is it not correct? And often We would have to say it just isn't I don't know why Right, not correct But you learn about the grammar you can talk in more specific terms and actually be helpful To the japanese teachers Got it and walk us through what we're seeing on the slide. Are these like the your biggest takeaways from the course? Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, I mean especially that it was so like your courses are the triplet is so easy to use and follow and to do in your own time generally around You know test period in japan You have a lot of more extra time and it was just it was so easy to do and follow And they give you really practical Examples that I went on to use in my classes So it's so so helpful Yeah, that's awesome Cool. What what do you think is the biggest or the the hardest thing about teaching english as a foreign language for you? What do you think? grammar for sure. Yeah Yeah, I think um Yeah, grandma and Trying to step out of what you know as a native Um because the textbooks are teaching very specific like patterns and things that are hard in english, but maybe you don't use very often so just knowing that grammar and how to explain it Um, if yes, that's really tricky because maybe you use it very much Yeah, that's true cool And do you you mentioned like teaching grammar is not you don't really have to do that often as a ALT General I mean again, every situation is different, but yeah, most I would say majority of jets mostly do like communication or conversation Yes, that's good And the japanese english teachers will handle all the grammar because they are more qualified to do it than we are Okay, got it. Okay. Cool. We have a question here from maria Asking I've always been curious about it. How easy is it to find a job relocate, etc? in japan I would say there Are plenty of jobs in japan for english teachers. Absolutely. Um, the jet program is pretty competitive depending on where you're from But there are thousands of places on the program and there are lots of other programs In japan other companies that do the same thing Um And outside of that there are jobs at international schools Um There are jobs at egg hires, which is english conversation schools that kids go to like after school Um, there are yeah, I'd say there is a huge amount of jobs um In japan for english teaching for sure. Absolutely. Um and easy to relocate Um jet really help you with a lot of things. So that's great and I imagine other companies probably help you too. Um Yeah So we had a lot of support moving on. Yeah If you like want to change schools, do you Like talk to somebody at jets or do you look for a recruiter or how does that work? In if you're on the jet program Um, that is I guess a con that if you want to change schools, it's quite difficult um unless you're Like getting married to someone who's in a different place or there's family That you need to be around I think except for those situations. It's really difficult to relocate but outside of jet I guess it's like any other job. You just don't buy for a different. Yeah buy for a different job Um And so when you're in the jet program and you want to get out of it you can Like is that easy you can just quit jet and then You can it's obviously discouraged because they put a lot of time and resources into hiring you because the process for hiring jets is really long you You send your application in in october and then you arrive in Like august so it's like a quite a long process And you are employed year by year. So I guess That's kind of a positive because you can just decide yearly if you keep if you want to stay but in saying that You can quit if you want to they can't stop you If you really hate it you can absolutely quit Okay, cool. All right and mariasis thanks again Just says my skills improved a lot after taking this course. I have recommended it to all of my friends salutations from ismir turkey Also, please I've always wanted to go turkey Okay, then robert is asking link to jets Do you know the website I need to google that The Jet program dot org is that Is that it jet program dot org? I think Looks like it here Can you quit? This one Yeah, yeah That looks right Here you go. That's the link And robert is listening Cool, okay All right the other cool thing about jet is that you don't have to be a native speaker some companies require you to be from a native speaking um english country But jet does not there are less places For people like they have a certain number of places per country, but you don't have to be a native english speaker You just have to have native level english Oh, that's great. So if you're not a native speaker You have to provide like an ios or like some kind of english language proficiency certificate probably right? So I one of my colleagues is from the philpines and she Had to do a few extra things like in your interview Um, she had to do a demo lesson But he did not in australia, so Which is kind of does that make sense? Sometimes you have to wonder yeah You're really good. Um, so yeah, there are a few more hoops to jump to i think but it's there are plenty of people from non Yeah, but I think that's one of the advantages of the jet program that you don't have to be from a English speaking country because that's the problem with korea and the epic program They only hire people from seven countries Like all english speaking countries. Yeah Yeah, wow So, yeah, that's really cool. Good for jet. I like that. Yeah, and it's nice for the kids to get like A variety of people, you know, so we realize that english is universal not yeah from like america And england, right? So do you know a lot of other jets? I guess yeah, um Jet has before corona Um has a lot of um like meetups so that you can meet other jets in your area and that's really cool From all around the world. So yeah, yeah a lot of jet friends Cool, and are they all from all different kinds of countries? Yeah, yeah, all over. Mm. Yeah, that's awesome. Cool Yeah, and actually that's one of the next I think that's next Yes So how has it been living in japan during the pandemic because we just talked about pre COVID meetups How has it been since? Um, obviously the the teaching itself is a big difference. Um, we've Been wearing masks in japan since it hit japan, which was last march. So it's now being A year and a half of wearing a mask every time you look out the door, right? So Um, that's really big change, especially in the classroom. You know some of the kids I've looked that started last year. I have not seen the bottom half of their face. I don't know what they look like So weird, which is a really weird thing Outside of that like we haven't we've never had any harsh Lockdowns in japan. Um, they don't really have the the laws to do that. So A lot of restrictions here are based on Your the trust the trust of the citizens to do the right thing to the right thing. I heard about that before. Yeah, that's interesting Yeah, it works for the most part. I think most people are pretty Law-abiding. I love they're not law-abiding just like doing the right thing um But there are always exceptions, you know, um, so it has worked to a point. Yeah. Um, and with teaching there's been like kind of waves of What you're expected to do when it first started people were in face shields like matty is in that picture Yeah, that looks so cool And I guess like, um Having a mask on it's tough to teach kids about pronunciation and things that can be kind of difficult. Um, and they have The desks like have shields at lunchtime.  I mean it depends on the school. Most schools Did a big stint of online classes last May Um, Matty's done a lot of online. Yeah, my class has been rude and my school has been quite strict with the online classes So we've gone through I think three like quite large periods of online classes which you know is Has its own difficulties when you teach english communication to 40 children on zoom, but You know, we do what we can Yeah cool and like, um I forgot what I wanted to ask Maybe it's gonna come back to me Oh, yeah, I just wanted to add like with what you were saying that Everybody was like wearing masks in the beginning since like march and everything I think it's kind of the same like here in korea. I feel like it's also part of like the asian culture. They're like like Right aware of like care about the community about the others not just Even like before corona, I think that's the same in japan when somebody has a cold or the flu They wear a mask and stuff like that. So Absolutely. Yeah, I have some kids that some really shy kids that just wear masks all the time Before corona too Yeah, yeah, I have quite a few they're just like very Um, yeah So you're right. It's part of the culture like it wasn't really that strange for everyone. Yeah Yeah, I think it's strange still strange because it's been going on for so long and There's like no end to it. But yeah Yeah Yeah, what about like we're like restaurants and stuff ever closed or Restaurants are kind of the only thing in japan that is really being affected by the restrictions I I can't even keep up with what they're doing now, but for a while at least I had to close by 8 p.m Now it's still 8 p.m. And they weren't allowed to sell any alcohol But now they can serve alcohol till 7 I Throw in some rules, but You know, they are they I think they've always been open Kind of until 8 o'clock at night because so many it's a big part of the culture here to eat out On your way home kind of thing. Yeah, because your apartments are tiny.  Yeah Yeah, I remembered what I wanted to ask you about the pandemic Do you know if like the pandemic affected the hiring of teachers and the jet program and stuff like that? Are they still Okay, very Hiring often like a lot of the countries still work through the hiring processes. It's just that they couldn't get here So my school Has been trying I have a co-jet so there's two jets at my school and My co-jet became a teacher And so we needed a replacement And the replacement was supposed to arrive in november and then it was december and then it was january and then february and then maybe never so We'll It's but she's from america So I think that was a deciding factor But I know australia and new zealand sent jets in december some year last year because they're From like low risk countries, but there are a lot of Jobs at the moment for english teachers. So if you can get here, it's a good time because there are a lot of positions open Yeah, because that's a good point because japan like for tourists is tourists is still closed, right? Yeah, yeah okay Shame I really want to go As soon as the borders open Um, I'm going to be on a plane over there. Yeah, for sure Okay No, we need to meet Yeah, no, I actually had a trip planned to tokyo in Like march 2022 to see the cherry blossoms. I had everything planned Everything was set and then everything got canceled. That was so sad. That was so sad It's been really strange actually we've had two year two two cherry blossom seasons with no tourists Yeah, but it must be nice for you though Yeah Yeah, but that's like a dream of mine to see like the cherry blossoms in japan with like the castle and you know Like people wearing kimono and like uh and mount fuji I hope maybe next year Okay, and then I think you're gonna show us Yes, your apartment and the biggest culture shock. So what have been some of the biggest culture shocks of living in japan? I mean This is on the slide the The apartment. I mean, this is also kind of tokyo. It's specific obviously other people live in bigger places, but Yeah, we shared a 17 square meter about 14 years We've literally just moved we both moved into our own individual apartments on saturday. So yay for us You can see like we were that's how close we were sleeping up in our loft. Um, I think And you know just coming from australia. It was just that was a big shock and it took a lot of getting used to um, we're fine now But when we got here it was like, oh no, what have we done? And you mentioned like because you're in the jet program in tokyo, you needed to find your own apartment like by yourself How was that if you're like new to this country and then here find an apartment that must be really challenging Yeah, they do put you want to an english-speaking real estate Oh, if you're placed in tokyo, um, some people, you know, if they have good enough japanese decide to find their own place, but Um for us, we found the company Really helpful and we actually got this apartment site unseen Before we It's not it's not recommended. They don't recommend to do that Wait till you're right When you sign the contract is it like for a whole year or Two years is the average in japan, but it's not so I don't like don't freak out about it, you know, like it's easy to get out of if you give them a much notice It's fine. Okay Okay, any other culture shocks just the apartment or I mean kind of like for me. I've been here so many times already that probably And you studied the language, so I think that helps. Yeah, but yeah Um, I think one of the things for me was um, everything is really quiet. Um, like people are quiet Transport is absolutely silent like no one talks on the phone. Actually when we went to korea It that was like a culture shock because we've been living in japan for so long And then we went to korea and everyone's talking on the phone on the train and I was like, what are you doing? We stepped on the train after leaving the airport and someone was on the phone and we went I was surprised when I go to sol and they're on their phones in the subway like do you have how do you have service down? How does that work? That's crazy. Yeah, so I think that's probably a big thing um Yeah, I guess like coming from Australia. Everyone's pretty loud. So here You know, like you keep your voice down and everyone's silent on the train But you know, it's actually kind of nice when you sort of get on the train after work and it's just like very peaceful That is nice. Yeah So but that was definitely A bit of a culture shock and I guess probably in tokyo How many people there are like it's just crazy like on rush hour We're literally like pushed Like there is a man starting into the train.  So you just have to be very Breathe. Yeah Yeah, that's also one thing I miss from back home sometimes like just going outside and there being like no one Yeah Like yeah, sometimes I miss that because I also come from a very rural small Place Yeah Fuck what what's like something that you miss the most from back home Probably that family Japanese people are very friendly and you know, the hospitality is great, but Very polite Very polite, but I once told a story about a chat I had with someone in a grocery store in Australia And their first question was why are you talking to the cashier at a grocery store? Like They're normal for us, but like they just they don't do that sort of stuff a lot like talking on the street Yeah, like the general chit chat where you get to know someone like it's very like customer um Yeah, like the customer service is amazing, but you're not making friends with them Got it. Yeah Okay Good interesting. Yeah All right. Oh, we actually have a question here And we talked about this already, but maybe we can just repeat it. So how can non-native Speaking teachers teach in japan are there any opportunities for us to teach there if we could just maybe repeat that real quick Um, so there are definitely opportunities um, you would just have to have some kind of english qualification that you can show the Employers and the jet program takes non-native speakers. Um, so I'm not sure what are we are Algeria. You're from Algeria um So the jet program has people from all over the world. Um, you just have to Have an english qualification that your english is a native level Um, I'm sure there are other companies as well Oh, yeah, there's lots of like english conversation schools and all around japan that Hi, anyone who has native level english. So yeah, definitely awesome great Good okay and then Oh, social media. Uh, okay. So that's where people can find you guys, right? Yes Instagram blog youtube So probably check them out regularly updated. Yes I saw your recent instagram posts like the the blue flowers that looks so amazing They look beautiful Love That's I think that's something I really love about japan is how much Um beauty is appreciated. Um, like every season Is appreciated people like there are words for watching flowers like hanami flower watching And people go to see the autumn leaves and there's a different flower every month And people talk about it at work. They're like, did you see the lovely This flower Yeah, people travel long distances to get to the flower fields Which is where those photos are taken like specific flower field Wow That's so pretty cool. And where where is that at the picture? So that's in ibaraki prefecture, which is like northeast of tokyo Okay, and I didn't know you also did youtube cool A little bit a little Okay, I need to check that out too interested again. We haven't done a lot of traveling lately Yeah, well, yeah But can you travel like in japan at the moment or is not really advised? Not advised they advise they advise against well, especially tokyoites because you know the big cities as well coroner and they Suggest that you don't Yeah, but there's a lot to see and do in tokyo, right? There's so much It could never run out of things to do. Yeah. Yeah. Ah, I really want to go I've been to fukuoka and osaka and like gnar. Oh, wow. So that's amazing Yeah, but I want to see more because it's so close to korea like I want to go But The ferry to fukuoka. I did. Yeah from busa Yeah, because I had to that was actually a funny story because before I moved to korea I lived in china and I had to get my korean Work visa but that like kind of something didn't work out so I couldn't get it in china So I actually had to do it in japan So my school said you can do like a visa run You just take the ferry go to fukuoka and then get your visa three days and then back So but it was so fun. It was my first time in japan. It was so cool That's amazing. Yeah That fukuoka was your first experience in japan Yeah, did have you been there? Again, we had a trip booked but we had to cancel it. Oh, okay. Got it. Yeah I feel like and that was like that's so long ago I feel like I didn't I did a lot. I actually did a kimono experience and like I don't remember I did a lot of stuff, but I feel like I could have seen more. I don't know I want to go back Yeah all right then Q&A those are I think all of my questions. Let me just double check Oh, no, we have I have two more questions, but there's also a question From the audience So to me to me asks, how's the cost of living there and how is the salary range? Maybe first Okay. Well, hello The cost of living really depends on where you are in japan. Obviously tokyo, uh, kyoto Have a much higher cost of living But that thing said things like food Incredibly cheap so all around japan. That was a big difference between Australia where food is so expensive to eat out Here is so so cheap. It can be cheaper to eat out and buy food at the grocery store Like if you eat somewhere for more than 10 dollars, you're like, wow, that's a bit expensive That's awesome. Cool.   Is it like different jets and private school or is that's like Is it different all all jets have the same wage? Yeah, and then it increases for each year you stay on jet basically and we do have especially as ALT's I think jet has the highest wages. Yeah, so we're really lucky to be on jet Yeah, it's not that far off what teachers get paid. Yeah um, and you're in a um, the first year salary for a jet is 280,000 yen per month um Which is like $3,000 Ish I think so, yeah Depending on which dollar you're talking about And google it google it. Yeah. Yeah, 280,000 yen per month. It was the first year and then it grows up from there. Um, and uh, like we said earlier The if you live anywhere except Tokyo Your school will provide you with an apartment or a house even sometimes people who live in the countryside have like entire houses to themselves rent free Not necessarily free, but like may as well be free like $50 a month Wow Yeah, so that's really cool. Um, we live in inner city, Tokyo um, we the suggestion Rent for a jet in Tokyo is 70,000 yen per month we pay Um between 80 and 90,000 per month for our current apartments um Mine's a little cheaper Which is doable it depends like how much Traveling you want to do. Um, our last apartment was really tiny and very cheap for both of us to live in And split the rent But we did that because we just wanted to travel and not be home that much. So But we find it really cool like the jet salary with living in inner Tokyo very yeah very much So and if you are very worried about If you want more space lots of people live in the surrounding areas from Tokyo Like and kind of go out and they just commute in like To my school most of the teachers don't live in Tokyo. They live outside and it's a 30 minute train Which is what it takes me from inner Tokyo. So It's a lot cheaper to live where they live. Um, yeah So Yeah, that's what a lot of people like always say like tokyo's so expensive Like apartments are too expensive, but Yeah, seems like you can make it work You can definitely make it work. Yeah Okay, okay, then I just want to mention one more time our 30% off link real quick for people who have might have missed it in the beginning. This is the link Um, it's in the comment box, uh, this link if you apply through that you can get 30% off any Teflor t-sol course from ittt and which course did you take the 120 hour? 120 hour 20 hour. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's the most popular option for sure Okay, or you can also scan the qr code and then I'm gonna make us Bigger, okay. Cool. And I think I actually have let's see Okay, one more question. I think we answered that kind of already So same to me. Are you provided with accommodation and the jet program kind of said that? Yeah, so if you're anywhere but tokyo, yes You will be provided with accommodation If you're placed in tokyo, they will set you up with an english speaking real estate company Um, and they will help you find an apartment.  What's your number one tip for others wanting to move to japan to teach english? Um, I would say just come with an open mind. Um The teaching style here is very different probably to what you're going from And you it's not your job to change the world so Just come with an open mind Just try and fit in with the teachers. You'll probably work with lots of different teachers lots of different classes um, just be really flexible and bring your enthusiasm because you might be the only native speaker that they've or you know foreigner that they've ever had contact with um in real life. So just be enthusiastic about english um, they've probably had like a whole week of grammar classes and then you come in and you're the communication teacher so just try and be like fun and encouraging Um, yeah, that would be my tip. Yeah, it's great tip Awesome. Yeah Cool, and then oh, yeah, sorry Oh I would probably say Be prepared to be your own advocate and that's probably for any job in japan So like the work culture itself is very very different to a lot of other places in the world um, you know, if you want to leave at four o'clock, which you're entitled to then do it Don't you know, don't do ridiculous hours like hours over time because everyone else is um also Like be your own advocate for your More Oh, yeah So obviously we're australians all of the textbooks that we teach from are american based Um, but luckily, you know after talking with the teachers of my school and everything I am allowed to use like british spellings and australian words and teach the kids a bit of australian english Um, and not everyone's allowed to do that. So, you know be your own advocate That's awesome. I think that's great advice for sure. Yeah That's good Cool. And then also what is next for you?  Probably not forever I am just finishing up on jet. Um this month. This is my last month So I've you know said goodbye to all my classes and um, yeah, I have What two and a half weeks left? Um, and then I'm going to work at an international school in tokyo Um, where I will teach english and humanities Um, so yeah, I'm really excited about that change jet is a really great stepping stone into other Positions in japan that really helps already be in japan to get a job in japan Yeah, that's awesome. And I talked about that in my previous lives too about like Usually like the first your first year in a new country teaching is like not going to be your end like that's usually the beginning for Like making connections and networking and also finding out what kind of school you're looking for maybe where you want to live So the first year is usually like kind of just getting to know the place and finding out what you like. I think Yeah, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. And you can kind of suss out what the options are and right. Yeah Okay, what about Betty? Um, I'll I've just signed on for another year or I'm about to start my third year of jet. So I don't know. I'll probably stay as a jet for the next couple of years I'm getting more and more of my own classes and more responsibility every year, which is great. Cool. Um Yeah, I don't think I'll stay in japan forever Um, I have thought about going on to like continue doing ESL teaching in europe or something So also hence the t-cell course very helpful for that. Awesome So yeah, we'll see what happens after the world opens up again Yeah, that's great all right then We're almost at the end. So if anyone else has a question for Maddie and georgia before we sign off now is your chance And also make sure you follow them over here On all of the social media and blog and I need to check out that youtube too Yeah, and if you have like any questions, we're happy to answer them on out Socials if you think of a question later, or if you're coming to japan one day. Yeah We'd love to like help you out show you around. Yeah. Oh, yeah, I'm definitely going to take you up on that for sure Yeah, cool anything else you want to add Before we sign off anything we missed Thinking I don't think we missed anything No, I don't think so. Yeah Yeah Okay, maybe let's give it a couple more seconds There's always a delay actually between the live and like I think it's like a 20 second delay between us Talking and then it showing up on facebook. So sometimes you need to give it a minute But yeah Very very interesting and really thank you so much again for taking your time today and joining us live That was really great No, we are we are so honored to have been asked. Yeah, thanks so much for having us Okay, and charles can confirm your great tour guides That's our brother Awesome, yeah, I also really want to go to australia Never been Definitely, I can give you lots of recommendations. We're in love Yes, please Yeah, because like I was born and raised in germany and from germany. It's so far to get to australia Yeah, but from korea. It's not that far. It's too far Yeah Yeah, how long does it take when you fly from tokyo Back home So, okay, yeah, and what's the best city in australia? I mean I get a lot of ideas. We're from we're from the state of queen's land and and the Capital in queen's land is brism And so that's where we did university I lived there after university and it's like it's a city that it doesn't feel like a city I think if you're looking for like the quintessential australian experience In this city of queen's land you have like the beaches and the reef and also the outback It's got it all. Yeah, but also I my favorite place is tasmania. It's beautiful The island underneath me is stunning. The food is amazing. The nature is amazing Yeah, I think it's the most discovered part that people don't usually visit Yeah, uh, I just want to go everywhere anywhere just outside of korea. Yeah All right, cool. I think we can sign off now. It was really awesome. We had a great chat. I learned a lot about japan um, and yeah, I think This is it for today Please tune in again next week and also you can always rewatch This episode if you just caught it in the middle or you didn't have enough time Please just watch it again. It's always in our playlist on facebook and also on youtube And um, yeah, that's it for today then. Thank you so much again maddie and georgia. All right. Thank you All right. See you later


Thank you very much for the fantastic invitation. It's a big pleasure to be here. Of course, I would like to be there in person, but it's very good to meet and hear many of the friends and collaborators over the years. So today I would like to talk about my perspective of the effort that has been going on for 20 years after the completion of the human genome. Of course, we know that the completion of the human genome has been given quite a lot of progress for many fields of science, biology, medicine, and the achievement of the human genome has truly produced a remarkable progress of science. However, although we have understood quite a bit of how the genome works, and here I put some of the main facts about the genome and the variability between individuals, actually needs a little bit of more studies, particularly also because it will become obvious that only a minor part of the genome encodes for proteins. Clearly, over the years, just after the completion of the genome project, Various projects started to ask what is needed to characterize to better understand how the genome is regulated. And immediately after the completion of the genome, the encode project started, was announced in 2004, and in parallel here in Japan with the other colleagues, we were starting the phantom project, it was quite different ideas, and actually at the end it turned out to be quite complementary to the encode project. I also mentioned Various other projects that have been very important to complement the human genome. But I'm going to focus essentially on those two projects, because I know them better have been interacting, particularly with the encode, and they've been also deeply involved in the phantom project. In the phantom project, actually, we have been focusing over the years to understand what the genome is producing. We've been focusing on identification of RNAs, capped RNAs, in order to capture all the RNAs that are present in tissue as a complete copy of them, so the full length CDNAs. And as everybody already knows, we identify we and others identify only 20,000, 21,000 protein coding genes. However, what was striking at that time is that there were other transcripts, particularly known coding RNAs, and then were actually the majority of the transcript that are present in the genome. At the beginning, we did not know so much about them, but year after year, many groups, particularly focusing on the biology of each of those RNAs, start to study them, and it became clear that apart of them, at least so far at the moment, no more than four or five percent of them have been further studied, and they regulate the regular chromatin, the regular transcription, translation, they interact with the product. So they do quite different things, although for 95 percent of them, we still do not know anything about. Here are about some numbers out of the phantom, three at the time, was mouse telling that 63 percent of the genome is transcribed, and many are long encoding RNAs, including quite a remarkable number of sense antisense. Actually, we inferred 73 percent of genes show some sort of antisense, and for many of them, we still do not know the type of regulation. So this is one of the first images of how the genes are in the genome. With many exceptions, we found the genes that start RNAs, that start in one gene, and finish in the downstream gene. We often find, for the first time at the time, quite a complex pattern with genes that are spanning into other genes, antisense region, antisense of antisense, so quite complex. And we defined as transcription unit everything that clustered together on the exon. So in this case, with so many different transcripts, we have only three transcription units for this specific example, and one gene forest, and where there is nothing we call a gene desert. But this also suggesting us that there are many different transcripts, and the transcript variability still has to be fully understood. Of course, there were other groups, and this is a very inspiring work from Tom Ginger. It has been a real pleasure to work with him over the years, with him and his group over the years, and this was a very inspiring work, because this shows that compared to the cytoplasmic poly A plus RNA, and actually there are many more nuclear and nuclear poly A minus RNA. So this paper has been inspiring us for a long time with the idea that we should really try to capture all of this difference that usually is not represented in our city and libraries that are commonly used to clone our, to identify our preferred genes. So a lot of transcription, and this approach was complementary to what the encode took, and here is one of the famous slides from the encode one, and the strategy was totally different, was to identify one percent of the human genome, was to use some of the cell lines because they can easily be grown and replicated and distributed, and actually this has been very important to work to develop technologies to identify hypersensitive sites, regions bound by chromosomes, by regions of the chromatin bound by transcription factors, and at the beginning was all based on micro-rehabilitation and suddenly sequencing started to replace all of this. There's been a very, you know, longer technology marathon. At the same time, we also developed technologies to map promoters that actually turn out to be very complementary to many of the other technologies. This is the cage technologies, and to make the story short essentially cage captures those randomly primed CDNAs and the sequence only the initial part of the transcript that is very closer to the initiation site. By doing this, we can essentially sequence the initiation site, and with this we essentially map gene expression, but also each promoter that drives expression in many, in many different tissues. And on the right, there is a simple comparison showing the difference of cage that essentially focus the signal on the initiation site without any sequence and that usually covers the whole body of the genes, but is not often very efficient to capture the initiation site. And just to show you a brief example of alternative promoters, just to show that all the cage tags here, this is a phantom tree many years ago, still shows that genes may have up to nine or 10 different initiation sites, many of them are tissue and tissue specific. And so, and actually this is quite important to understand gene regulation because the set of transcription factor and the epigenome differs in each of the set type. So, we did not plan to, we did not know that the next generation sequence will develop so vigorously and strongly, but clearly the development of the various technologies has been really very welcome, not only to sequence genomes, but definitely to understand what the genome is doing by using, you know, secret chip, secret and secret cage and many more sick technologies that have really been enabled functional genomics. And of course, this curve shows the decrease of the cost, we would really welcome the further decrease of the cost that seems to be quite stable over the past four or five years. And based on the sequencing, the next phase of the encoder has been expanding, of course, going genome-wide and including 147 cell types. And actually there were some findings that were similar to what was the early observation of the phantom, and particularly one that has been discussed very extensively that 80% of the genome participate in some of the biochemical events. So, seems to do something, although we don't understand very well. Of course, other parts of the genome are important for understanding genetics and the role of the GWAS. And there is a complex better understood quantitative transcription factor chromatin RNA relationship, both in promoter and splicing, transcription factor co-associated, and chromatin can be classified in multiple classes. This was been quite an important project to introduce new concepts to analyze the genomes. And here I just put some of the summary that, in particular, this 62% here of the genome that produces some sort of RNA has been quite similar to previous observation and actually tend to converge with observation in the phantom project, but also in other important projects. And so, clearly pervasive transcription for RNA is there. RNA is a very important component, although we know still very little. So, again, the phantom and the encode have been evolving quite in parallel without any common planning, but often converging and comparing the data around the end of the project or when the data were prepared. So, in 2010, 2011, we started to think that we should prepare a map of promoters using cage from as broad as possible collection of primary cells and collection of tissue, because we really need to have a collection of human promoters. And this was the phantom 5 where we took 100 primary cells and followed up with the 32 of them with the time course to see how the promoters and the promoter changes during the activation or various time courses. And this is a little bit fairly complex slide, so we cannot go in all the details of all the different cell types. There are more than 150 human primary cells and many more tissues here, but just to give you some impression of all the type of sample from the depocyte immunology and the mesoderm, endoderm, ectoderm and the differentiation of neurons and so on. And this was quite important to identify the diversity of promoter and something else that I'm going to comment later. Particularly, we did for all those samples cage, so with cage we can identify promoter and infer the type of network, the transcription factors that are important, that are enriching the promoter that are present in each cell. For a subset RNA sequencing, smaller RNA sequencing some other assays to identify all those different cells. And to have a first look at how looks this diversity, we've been clustering variety of promoters that have a similar expression features and how do they map compared to the cells of origin. So we can see the whole diversity of promoter activity here. But also what we can see is that those tend to cluster for different cell types, so immunocells and central nervous system and placenta, epithelial, mesenchymal cells. And I think that this was a quite important exercise because we also found that the cancer cell lines, and many of them were used during the ENCODE 1 and ENCODE 2, they occupied quite specific space of the transmitter. But this suggested that to really broadly identify the human biology, we really need to identify and characterize many different cell types, in particular primary cell types, and from now on as much as possible offer tissues out of the human body. Some surprises when you use those powerful technologies, usually you always find something new. One was that the promoter architectures can be different in different tissues. So the same promoter can have a different modality. So for instance in this, in astrocyte, we find only single starting site here. But if you look at immune cells, CD14 or CD4, the starting sites used a migrate more upstream. And this is one of the ENCODE cell line, and everything moves even more upstream. And there is nothing here from a promoter that has this shark and has a data box. So the idea is that promoter have a sub modality. So promoter, within the very same promoter, you have a various elements that are differently active. Usually data box promote a transcription form from a single position in the genome, CPG Allen, from more distributed or broad regions. And those can coexist in the same promoter. By counting here, essential one, two, and three groups, we had more than 223,000 promoters in humor, less amounts, not because the mouse was more simple, but because we just did not sample as much. The other things that we did not expect, we have already seen a little bit with the ENCODE 2 project that we can also characterize enhancer by directional transcription. And actually, because of the selection of the samples, they tend to be quite tissue specific. So the number of the enhancer that the phantom identify is much smaller than the number of the enhancer of the encoded. However, they tend to be, they have some good future because they are overrepresented in one cell tissue or group. And this may help you if you really are looking for enhancers that are very specific for a given cell type. And importantly, they also are important for genetics. And we have been comparing the GWAS that are mapping in Exxon. And those are the values, diseases which are related. So Exxon is a relatively small number compared to the promoters that is mostly out of the Exxon, but even more in the enhancer. So this has definitely been helping to map and give some possible function to some of the GWAS over the years of following this paper. And again, after the phantom project, there is always some ENCODE project and this was a really remarkable achievement. And I really would like to congratulate with all the authors and of those papers and actually the number of the cells and the number of the data set, the number of biosamples, we massively expanded 503 biological tissue types. And I would like to say that probably the biggest achievement is in here is the registry of candidate assist regulatory elements. So the CCRE. And so because they definitely can help us to understand what is happening here in the genome, what is regulated in the genome, and also in different cell types. So the registry is massively large with more than 926,000 candidate assist regulatory element. And I mean less in mouse, again, because the sample was slower. And they cover a remarkable part of the human genome, about 8%. And also they cover 80% of element marked by chromatin marks and a part of the previous GWAS and phantom collection. So essentially, as always, data tend to converge, which is good. And is also telling that those complementary projects are always very, very important. Another paper that I like very much is the landscape of chromatin loops in the human genome, which brings for 24 cell types, everything in 3D, identifying a tighter solution, 125,000 loops, with variation among chromatin loops in different cells, which is also quite, quite important. And also various features about the role of enhancers in genes that are associated with disease and associated with the features of the in the conformation. And a third important finding, and again, I'm not trying to summarize comprehensively all the findings here, but just some of the most important finding is anyway is the RNA binding proteins. This is only in 2 cell lines, but the extent of the experiment is very remarkable, and identifies quite extensively with different technologies what RNA binding proteins actually bind. And this is very important to understand the regulation at a different level from the promoter and the enhancer level. But also, in particular, our group is using this very, very extensively to understand the motives in many of the loan-ocoding RNA that we are studying. And particularly, we'll have some examples later if there is time to discuss them. So here is for the encode and a little bit of what we are working on, the loan-ocoding RNAs, because they really need some effort. We have been recounting the loan-ocoding RNA in 2017, with Chung. At the time when we publish, we found some diversions with the gene code that we have been discussing after this. I did not update my slide. Apologies for this. And actually, those phantom cut that for which we found evidence from a cage promoter and additional chromatin marks are quite remarkable. This is a robust dataset. If you want to look at the permissive, so the aggressive way to count them, there is even more. Importantly, also, the loan-ocoding RNAs are mapping, have interesting mapping data compared to the disease. So if you look at the expression of the non-coding RNAs versus the traits, which is traced that have some map. So we find that very often the loan-ocoding RNAs that are mapping on a trait that is important for some brain disorder, C. Alistair, are actually expressed in the region and in the cells that are important for that disease. So there is quite a strong correspondence. This is a zoom-in of a map for all the tissues that we don't have the time to discuss today. But actually, we found this also to be the case for all the other organs. So diseases and the expression of coding RNA tend to correlate. I will skip this and go into a little bit of our summary slide on the possible function of the loan-ocoding RNA inferred by genome conservation, particularly transcriptionalization region conservation, is this number, conservation of axon, loan-ocoding RNA implicated in GWAS traits, and the loan-ocoding RNA implicated in EQTL. So it's about 3,000, 2,000, and 13,000 each. So in total, we have some suggestions that 19,000 of loan-ocoding RNA may have some potential function if you also assume that conservation is associated with function. With this in mind, we have been over the years running the Phantom 6, with the idea to knock down loan-ocoding RNAs. See here on the left, we knock down and we see that there is something happening after knocking down, let's say transcription starts and the whole network of all the cells will work. So actually, we do this systematically. We analyze the loan-ocoding RNA to knock down. We do perturbation with a gap mesh, so anti-sense, that acts also on the non-coding that are in the nucleus. We extract the RNA, prepare a library, the sequence, and then we do the bioinformatics analysis and then we jump here on the right side where we see the pattern. So this is by knocking down about 250 loan-ocoding RNAs and looking at which pathways, which gut term have been changing. At the same time, also looking at the cell morphology proliferation with some robot, with incosite measuring cell growth. We can see, interesting, is that there is not just stress response after transcription, but there are various aspects like splicing, translation, cell cycle, metabolism, so they seem to do quite a bit of things. Caveat, the response is not always strong. You need to replicate the study very carefully and very often the anti-sense may differ also because we don't know all the structure of the non-coding RNA by using two different anti-sense against what we think is non-coding genes. We may hit two different splicing isophobe. Anyway, the paper was just published in research and the data is all available. Please feel free to download the data. There are several thousand caged libraries here as well, so you can download and check and draw your conclusion. We have a few more studies in the pipeline with IPS cells on a similar work that have not yet been published. This is a little bit of the interrogation of the function. This is not only genomics, but it is also experimented after scratching cells. How long does it take to regenerate with a different anti-sense? It seems that for this gene, one anti-sense of this zinc finger, actually one anti-sense, I need it quite efficiently, the migration of cells. We've been looking at cell migration and cell proliferation and correlating cell growth and proliferation with the GoTerms and Cag pathways that are coming out from the genomics analysis. Clearly, we see that when we see less growth, the non-coding RNA causes changes in genes related to apoptosis or apoptosis immune system. Otherwise, genes, if there is an increase of growth or proliferation, there is about cell cycle and DNA replication. So this seems to make sense. We've also been working quite a bit to characterize the non-coding RNA that are in the chroma team. Particularly, we know that there is a considerable amount of non-coding RNA attached to the nucleus in the chroma team. Those are some of the numbers. And with the former postdoc of my lab, Alessandro and other members have been developing a method to cross-link RNAs bound to the chroma team, bound to the genomic DNA. And after various steps, the key point is to add a link that we like it from one side specifically to the RNA. At the other side specifically to DNA, this is all in the cross-linked nuclei. So molecules don't move too much. So we think we capture quite a lot of the situation as it is cross-linked. After the cross-linking and the transforming the RNA into cDNA and putting our linkers, we sequence in the Illumina and we do one or two layers of this library and we study this whole interactive. And that truly is a pattern that somehow has a correlation with the high C pattern. But of course, one side is RNA. The correlation is between 0.5 to 0.6. But also we see quite a different things as well. We found quite a lot of interaction within the same chromosomes between the RNA on the Y-axis and DNA on the X-axis. And this interaction is usually caused by introns of protein-coding genes. So this is quite a lot of surprising. So introns are often not degraded and they interact with along the same chromosome. The other are those distributed spots often in green. And then often are long non-coding RNAs or other non-coding RNAs that show some values of interaction. Those are the number of events, huge number of interactions, and including also non-coding RNAs. And this is one example, NIT1, that is not so active in mouse and drone extents cells. So int interacts here with its own locus on the chromosome 19 and a little bit outside. But if you look on oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, this is all mouse. It interacts not only with its own locus, but with different regions of the same chromosome and also introns with different chromosomes. So we have hundreds and hundreds of those graphs. If you look at the paper also just recently out in natural communication, we can find all the data there as well. There is some specific direction those interaction RNA chromat interaction are enriched at the tied boundaries. And also there is an effect on the distribution. So the interaction of RNA within the same tide is larger than the interaction outside the same tide. It's telling us that those interactions are probably some biological meaning, which we still do not understand. And importantly, also what we see is an important role of repeat element. We don't know how important it is, but repeat element, if compared to a non repeat transcript, they tend to distribute over a long range distance along the chromosome. And this is all statistically relevant for sine, line, and LTR element. Repeat elements. And I'll just bring here in the last few minutes, one example of repeat element that are embedded in the transcript. And this is one repeat element embedded in this antisense in red. And actually, once we over express the antisense, it does not affect the level of the sensor RNA, but it affects the level of protein. So it over express the cause over expression of the protein. This was published before, but actually what and actually, this is caused by a sine element, sine B2 element. If you take this out, we don't see this effect anymore. So what we've been studying with Harshita still unpublished for is that this is not only one exception RNA, but we have a whole class of sine B2 RNAs, but that but also have a human repeat element embedded in the transcripts that are effective to enhance protein. So this is a class in the mouse is a class in the human, but we identify also in Arabidopsis in course in the fishes in human. And actually, they work in different species. So repeat element and has embedded in antisense, enhanced protein expression of the target RNA in different species. And then is this caused by primary sequence. And by looking at the sequence, we believe it's not is mostly look is mostly a combination of motifs. And actually, we just very briefly using a model of COPS seven B, that is helping sufficient gene that in Medaka fish, the mouse element can rescue a phenotype induced by morpholino that I need with slicing here. And the mouse sine B2 can actually enhance the translation of the fish protein and rescue the phenotype because this is quite interesting for future application in the human. And again, please do not underestimate the importance of repeat, repeat element. Now perspective, everything is going to move a single cell. And we just in the published last year, the cage that works in single cell first with the C1, we see similar things in the Tenex, we identify enhancers, bidirectional enhancers, but actually in each cells and then essentially monodirectional, they're not bidirectional in each cells. On average, they are bidirectional if you look at cell population. There's a good correlation with the DNA is hypersensitive site and the chromatin marks are essential. We can map in the single cell trace identified promoters and and go into genetics working with single cell. In particular, the concept here is that we will map those regulatory elements correlated to the SNP. I try to understand the expression of PtL in each of the specific cells. I've been going very, very quickly here. I'd just like to mention that this is also part of the human cell atlas and there is no need probably to discuss very extensively the human cell atlas here. But we are also quite strongly engaged with this project. There is a human cell atlas activity in Japan with a collection of data starting from various hospitals and we're looking forward to do this and some general details of how the project will go. And there's also a human cell atlas initiative in Asia. I'm going to have the next meeting later this month in China. So please stay tuned to if you are in Asia, please contact us if you want to be a part of this. And finally, I would like to introduce the Human Technopole, one Institute in Milan where I'm progressively moving a good part of my activity in this year and more in the coming years. Thank you very much for your attention. This was done in collaboration with many and there is no time but I just leave this here for any questions that you may have. Thank you very much for your attention.