Ryusei Matsumoto won the 14th Society for Biotechnology Outstanding Student Award (Hisho Sho) and the Outstanding Student Presentation Award at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for Biotechnology, Japan (2025), held September 10-12, 2025.

The Outstanding Student Award is presented to encourage research by student members who are doctoral students at Japanese universities (or equivalent graduate programmes) and are expected to achieve outstanding research accomplishments. The award ceremony took place on September 10. This award recognises Matsumoto’s research analysing the evolutionary dynamics of polyphosphate kinase 2, which revealed promiscuous and highly active enzymes applicable to nucleoside triphosphate and RNA synthesis.

He also won the Outstanding Student Presentation Award, which was presented for the oral presentation titled “Analysis of the evolutionary dynamics of polyphosphate kinase 2 identified promiscuous and highly active enzymes for practical applications”, delivered at the 77th Annual Meeting of the Society for Biotechnology, Japan.

Matsumoto is a 1st year doctoral student at ELSI (School of Life Science and Technology, Department of Life Science and Technology, Life Science and Technology Course of Science Tokyo) and jointly mentored by ELSI’s Professor Tomoaki Matsuura and Specially Appointed Associate Professor Liam M Longo.
 
‘I sincerely thank Prof. Tomoaki Matsuura, Prof. Liam M. Longo, and our lab members for their guidance. Inspired by those awards, I will continue exploring the applications of the enzymes I discovered and strive to contribute to the advancement of biotechnology’ commented Matsumoto.