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Overview

Serving Global Welfare with Knowledge

 
The Institute of Medical Science,The  University of Tokyo (IMSUT) was established by Dr. Shibasaburo Kitasato in 1892 as the Institute of Infectious Diseases (IID). In 1967 it was then reorganized and underwent a name change from IID to IMSUT.

With a 127-year history beginning in Meiji, spanning the Taisho, Showa and Heisei eras and now entering Reiwa, at IMSUT, we explore the universal truth of biological phenomena and the principles of diseases.

Through this exploration, we aim to contribute to all of human society by offering development of innovative disease prevention and treatment strategies and their social implementation. 

To that end, we emphasize the free and interdisciplinary research environment in which various disciplines such as computer science, the natural sciences, engineering, agriculture, pharmacy, medicine, ethics, public policy studies, etc. can mutually inspire and build off each other with "medical science" as a keyword.

Individual researchers and healthcare professionals promote creative research, technology development and advanced medical treatment driven by their intellectual curiosity. Specifically, aiming at controlling infectious diseases, cancer, and other intractable diseases such as immune disorders or neuromuscular diseases, we will develop project-type research on genomic medicine, regenerative medicine, and disease model animals.

Also we are promoting advanced medical approaches such as gene/virus therapy, cell therapy, pioneering vaccine development and AI medical care. In order to achieve the above tasks, IMSUT has three core research departments promoting basic and translational research based on the free pursuit of ideas: Department of Basic Medical Science, Department of Cancer Biology, and Department of Microbiology and Immunology. 

To address the most important issues necessary for social implementation of diverse research results, we have established eight research centers and five research facilities. Examples include the Human Genome Center, which houses a supercomputer (SHIROKANE) with the highest computing performance in Japan specializing in the life sciences, and the Advanced Clinical Research Center. Moreover, IMSUT hospital, which is the only national university institute-affiliated hospital in Japan, is conducting clinical trials and advanced medical treatments based on world-leading research results.

On top of that, last year, among the national university-affiliated research institutes of Japan serving the life science field, IMSUT was officially authorized by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan, as the only International Joint Usage/Research Center.

The mission of IMSUT as the center is to accelerate basic and clinical research in a global framework. Currently, in addition to the main unit Shirokanedai Campus, we dispatch faculty members and researchers to the Research Center for Asian Infectious Diseases (Beijing) and Amami Laboratory of Injurious Animals (Amami Oshima), etc. A total of more than 1,000 academic, administrative, technical, and hospital staff and researchers, etc., play active roles, including over 200 students belonging to 8 graduate schools of our university.