[citation needed] After earning her doctorate she moved to Harvard Medical School, where she was a postdoctoral researcher with David Fisher.
[3] The regeneration of hair follicle stem cells is a cyclical process, where they undergo active and dormant phases.
[4] These cancerous pigment stem cells can migrate out of the follicles, building melanoma on the surface of skin.
[4] In 2021, Nishimura showed that stem cells in the skin are important in the regeneration.
Her work showed that in older stem cells the epidermal growth factor receptor is diminished, which results in the degradation of COL17A1.