Nice to meet you. My name is Lydia Pui Ying Lam. I was born and grown up in British Hong Kong,
so my background is a bit international. I really like Japan, including its food,culture and lifestyle,
so I decide to base in Japan. It is my pleasure to work at Akita University where is surrounded by
beautiful nature.

My research is mainly focused on plants, particularly grasses that consist of important food crops
like rice and maize, and bioenergy crops like sugarcane and switchgrass. I am interested in specialized
metabolism of grasses, particularly those related to lignin and flavonoids. These include the following
areas:
(1) Identification and elucidation of lignin and flavonoid biosynthetic pathways and regulation mechanism
in grasses.
(2) Understanding the roles of lignin and flavonoids in plant growth, development and stress responses.
(3) Bioengineering of plants to produce useful chemicals, enhance their stress resistance and improve
their biomass utilization properties for the generation of green energy, chemicals and materials in
biorefineries.

Overall, I hope I can connect and translate basic scientific research discoveries and knowledge
into practical biorefinery and agroindustrial applications. Ultimately, through my research activities,
I am aiming to contribute to solving real world problems such as reducing global reliance on the use
of fossil resources for production of energy, chemicals and materials that have cased huge environmental
problems for decades.

In addition to research, I am also engaged in English education of Life Science courses in Akita
University. I hope students can find learning interesting and have fun during classes, while at the
same time, equip the essential skills of speaking, writing, reading and listening English. As English
is the key language to communicate with other people around the world, it will be great if students can
broaden their horizons by connecting to the world.

Center for Crossover Education