Ichio SHIMADA
Dean, Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life
A leading education and research center for life sciences
Hiroshima University has established the Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life in April 2019 to further enhance education and research in the field of life sciences. Currently, there are approximately 180 faculty members: professors, associate professors, lecturers, assistant professors, and visiting professors. Although the graduate school is based on traditional academic fields such as science, engineering, agriculture, and medicine, it is composed of new seven degree programs that are appropriate for understanding current life sciences: Biotechnology, Food and AgriLife Science, Bioresource Science, Life and Environmental Sciences, Basic Biology, Mathematical and Life Sciences, and Biomedical Science.
As described above, there are various academic fields in life sciences. In addition, each field is also becoming more specialized and sophisticated. In the age of great voyages, the scholars who accompanied Captain Cook were botanists who judged whether or not a new species was a biological organism. At that time, biology was based on classification according to individuals. Since then, life sciences have developed from molecular biology, an understanding of life based on DNA, to structural biology, understanding life phenomena based on the three-dimensional structure of biological molecules such as proteins that govern life phenomena.
Therefore, education and research in life sciences require the acquisition of diverse and vast amounts of knowledge, as well as the systematization and utilization of complex knowledge. Based on this understanding, tthe Graduate School of Integrated Sciences for Life aims to establish a world-class education and research system that is appropriate for the current state of life sciences and to produce human resources that can contribute to the next generation of society.