National Science Foundation - Japan Society for the Promotion of Science grants awarded to
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The major objectives of our U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research grants were 1) to increase the interactions between my laboratory and Professor Kawauchi's and Nozaki's laboratories in Japan and 2) to develop new techniques and insight on the molecular isolation of pituitary hormones (the glycoprotein hormones, including the gonadotropins) in lampreys and hagfish. These NSF grants funded three of Sower's postdocs to travel to Japan and do collaborative research for six weeks in Professor Kawauchi's laboratory. The JSPS award allowed several Japanese scientists and their students to travel to New Hampshire for three to six weeks stays. Between the NSF and JSPS grants, we were able to host several workshops entitled JSPS-NSF workshops and visiting scientists between 1999 and 2013 at the University of New Hampshire. We held two workshops in Australia (sponsored by JSPS) in 2001 and 2002. We held a 2005 Satellite Symposium on Reproductive Endocrine Systems in Agnathans and Protochordates in Durham, NH. Our last workshop was in May 2013 with a visit from Professor Nozaki and one of his PhD students. Our extensive collaborations led to the isolation and identification of all of the anterior pituitary hormones and cDNA/genes in lamprey (Sower and Kawauchi, 2006, Sower et al., 2015) and one of the pituitary gonadotropins in hagfish (Uchida et al., 2010). Our long standing collaborations were exemplified by years of hard work, much effort and much patience that have led to wonderful life long friendships.