On behalf of the Nagoya University School of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine, I am honored to have this opportunity to say a few words of greeting.

The Nagoya University School of Medicine was originally founded in 1871 (Meiji year 4) by the Nagoya feudal clan as a temporary hospital and temporary medical school. With a history and traditions stretching back 140 years, it is one of the oldest medical schools in Japan. In 1931 the University became the seventh Imperial University in Japan, with faculties of medicine and science and engineering. In 1949, after World War II, it was restarted as Nagoya University under a new education system.

In 1997 the Department of Health Sciences was established; the School of Medicine thus came to comprise two faculties, Medicine and Health Sciences. Then, in 2000, greater importance was placed on the Graduate School by reorganizing the basic and clinical medicines into four research fields: Integrated Molecular Medicine, Cell Information Medicine, Function Construction Medicine and Health & Community Medicine. Through this reorganization we aim to take a leading role in Japanese medical research and medical care, and to create new academic fields and a School of Medicine and Graduate School that are open to the world.

We consider it of particular importance to promote an education and research environment that will support the internationalization of the University in areas such as the growing number of students from overseas; we hope these students from the Nagoya University School of Medicine will go out into the world with every success.

One of the features of our School and Graduate School of Medicine is a strong partnership with many of the hospitals and research institutes in the area (including Aichi Cancer Center, the National Institute for Longevity Sciences, and the Aichi Prefectural Colony – Welfare Center for Persons with Developmental Disabilities). Through deeper cooperation with these institutions we wish to contribute to the development of society by nurturing diverse talented people such as the next generation of medical researchers, and the clinicians and co-medical practitioners who will become leaders in local medical care.

In recent years, the number of medical school graduates wishing to practice basic medicine has been decreasing sharply on a national level, and dealing with this is beginning to be discussed as an important issue by the Council of Head of National Medical Schools of Japan.

Last year Nagoya University, in cooperation with the University of Tokyo, Kyoto University and Osaka University, started the Medical Scientist Training Program. We wish to demonstrate, through providing deeper experiences at the student level, that basic medical research can be interesting, thereby adding support to the cultivation of basic medical researchers.

We are confident that this endeavor will result in furthering the cultivation of physician scientists, and that it will be linked to great progress throughout the School of Medicine. The discovery of the seeds that contribute to diagnosis and medical treatment largely originates in basic research, and we would like this endeavor to clearly inform students of its extreme importance for clinical research and translational research. I feel strongly that an approach that begins with students, such as this one, is essential for the birth and flowering of original research at Nagoya University.

We aim to have a School of Medicine and Graduate School full of vitality, and intend to put all possible effort into achieving this. We appreciate your advice and guidance.

Masahide TAKAHASHI, MD, PhD
Dean of the School of Medicine and Graduate School of Medicine, 

1. Experimental Pathology
2. Tumor Biology
3. Molecular Neurobiology

1. Molecular mechanisms of cancer invasion and metastasis
2. Mechanisms of anticancer drug resistance
3. Development of the nervous system and the molecular pathogenesis of neuropsychiatric disorders

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4. Enomoto, A., Murakami, H., Asai, N., Morone, N., Watanabe, T., Kawai, K., Murakumo, Y., Usukura, J., Kaibuchi, K., and Takahashi, M.
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6. Asai, N., Iwashita, T., Matsuyama, M. and Takahashi, M.
  Mechanism of activation of the ret proto-oncogene by multiple endocrine neoplasia 2A mutations.  Mol. Cell. Biol. 15: 1613-1619 (1995).

7. Takahashi, M., Ritz, J. and Cooper, G.M.
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