About Graduate School of BiostudiesTHE BEGINNING OF A NEW ERA OF LIFE SCIENCES
Dean: YONEHARA, Shin, D.Sc.
In the past, most of the important discoveries in the field of life sciences were made accidentally or passively as a result of the diligent efforts of the individual researcher. New frontiers were opened based on the immediate needs of the individual, without the support of a systematic educational system. The researchers entered the field of life sciences incidentally under the past academic system. Therefore, by getting organized, these life scientists could systematize the previously incidental education and research and establish a new academic system for the study of life sciences. This new idea does not conflict with the existing departments and faculties. Accordingly, the Graduate School of Biostudies was founded in 1999. The aim is to nurture individuals who can value the future of life and its dignity by attempts to constructively integrate and understand humans, animals, plants and the environment, through studies of the cells and genes, the constituent units of the living body. In this way, the individual is to be nurtured naturally to have respect for human dignity and concern for the environment.
THE GOALS OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BIOSTUDIES
Those trained in the fields of science, agriculture, medicine and pharmacology, where the studies in the life sciences were pursued in the past, have independently contributed greatly to the current developments of our society. However, the new Graduate School of Biostudies has the purpose of training people capable of supporting the human society in the 21st century, based on a general understanding of the life sciences.
The three goals of the graduate school
(1) Provide education for pursuing the new biostudies at the world's top level
To meet the demands of the industry, college and research institutes, individuals are educated in the life sciences and master the techniques for the society needs.
(2) Train individuals to apply the new life sciences for the protection of the global environment and for human welfare Integrate the knowledge and technology in the old fields of science, agriculture, medicine and pharmacology, and nurture individuals who can contribute to the human society in the 21st century.
(3) Nurture individuals who can understand the various vital phenomena of the living organisms as a systemic function, and pursue these systemic functions
Nurture individuals who will be leaders in the human society to pursue their activities for the welfare and happiness of humans in the 21st century, where humans will be living in harmony with other living beings.
In order to meet the demands of the changing society in the 21st century, which will be impossible to cope with in the current research academic system for the life sciences, a new research and education system is installed to breakdown the walls that have hindered the research in the life sciences in the past. There are two courses in the Graduate School of Biostudies.
(1) The Division of Integrated Life Sciences: cell development, cell growth, genetic information and cell cycle regarded as a multicellular system, and the totipotency, the mechanism of signal transduction and the responses among the cell, living being and environment.
(2) The Division of Systemic Life Sciences: neuroscience, animal development and physiology, immunobiology and others.
AIMS OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BIOSTUDIES
(1) Training of individuals with the most advanced knowledge of the life sciences for the next generation
The graduate student studies a higher level of life sciences beyond the structures of past life science-related fields at each undergraduate level to understand the integrated life sciences. The goal is to nurture a new type of individual with creative and innovative abilities to cope with the various unknown themes to be confronted by human beings in the next generation.
(2) Training to establish self for society
In the Graduate School of Biostudies, individuals are trained to make a healthy and fair judgment based on the academic background of the staff and their prospects for the future; and, establish a new system to evaluate the effects of education from multiple aspects from the past.
(3) Activation and flexibility of staff in the human relations
Research is pursued by each staff member independently to develop a new life science based on active exchange among the various laboratories in the graduate school.
(4) Use of current post-doctoral system and evaluation of academic activities
Full use should be made of the current system, to provide the increasing necessary number of instructors per student, for the intensive training to become life scientists at an international level, for true development of a new research field.
