COE (GCOE) program

Hideyuki Okano

It is my great pleasure that we could inaugurate the Global COE (GCOE) program, titled "The Education and Research Center for Stem-Cell Medicine".

The purpose of the present GCOE program is to maximize the use of the human resources development strategy and research assets created through the 21st-Century COE Program "Center for the Integration of Basic and Clinical Research in Stem-Cell Medicine and Immunology" (21st-Century COE) in the GCOE Program, "The Education and Research Center for Stem-Cell Medicine", and to reorganize the graduate school in order to create a world-class training program. Our GCOE program will strive to realize the following three objectives:

1. To build a positive cycle of human resource development by creating a system of ongoing education and research, and by having the more experienced students mentor the newer students (achieving "self-renewality").
2. To achieve human resource development characterized by diversity (achieving "multipotency")
3. To promote human resource exchange in order to create an international network for collaboration (achieving "mobility"). It will also work to create a new academic field called "stem-cell medicine".

We strongly believe that the creation of an education and research program focused on "stem-cell medicine" will dramatically contribute to the overall improvement of education and research activities in the doctoral program of the Graduate School of Medicine, because stem cells essentially exist in all organs, spanning the lifetime of an organism, from the early embryonic stage to its death, and because they are closely linked to the pathogeneses and treatments of many diseases.
In our GCOE program, we are striving to integrate research in basic and clinical medicine based on a comprehensive understanding of stem cells by taking a lead in the 5 research areas described below, in order to create an outstanding and internationally competitive education and research center that trains pioneering leaders in these fields.

1. Tissue stem-cell regulation and in vivo experimental medicine
   (sub-leader: Toshio Suda).
2. Inflammation/immunological regulation and tissue regeneration
   (sub-leader: Shigeo Koyasu).
3. Development of new cancer treatments targeting cancer stem cells and EMT
   (sub-leader: Yutaka Kawakami).
4. Development of regenerative medicine for intractable diseases
   (sub-leader: Keiichi Fukuda).
5. Practical implementation of feasible regenerative medicine
   (sub-leader: Yoshiaki Toyama).

Through close interactions between the leader, subgroup leaders, members of G-COE program, including members from overseas (Olle Lindvall (Lund University, Sweden), Hans Keirstead (University of California, Irvine, USA) and Naoto Ueno (MD Anderson Cancer Center, USA), we wish to create new era of science called "Stem Cell-Medicine" and educate the world-top level scientists of the next generation.