The average life expectancy in developing countries has increased during the 20th century from 45 to 80 years. A similar shift towards longer life expectancy continues in many underdeveloped countries. Combined, these changes are thought likely to result in a global population totaling more than ten billion by the end of this century. Living a happy life in this kind of “aged society” will depend upon the availability of adequate, technology and developments in the healthcare and medicine sectors; these will be essential to fulfilling the requirements of a society able to provide high quality health and safety. What is essential to achieve this, is further development and synergy of advanced medical technology. According to statistics, 20% of Japan’s annual national health insurance bill, which stands at 36 trillion yen in total, goes towards medicines. This indicates just how important innovations in pharmaceutical science are for research and education development . Despite this urgent need, the level at which innovative medicine is appearing on the market has been decreasing in spite of the extremely high levels of investment in research development costs. These points to the limitations of the conventional trial-and-error approach to pharmaceutical drug discovery Pharmaceutical science for drug discovery is a total process science, including the disciplines of pharmaceutics, medical science, chemistry, and biotechnological research and development, and encompassing all stages from basic research on target symptoms through to final product design and production. It is clear that, the next innovation in pharmaceutical science will requires innovation in approach also. Essential to such an innovative approach is the creation of a strong educational foundation for the next generation of pharmaceutical researchers. Young researchers must learn how to that lead the field toward finding solutions to current issues in the conventional drug discovery process by fusing together knowledge and experience clinical medicine, basic sciences (biology, chemistry, physics), and developing technologies (cellular technologies, informatics, high throughput screenings); these are the fields in which there is the most urgent need for education.
In response to such social requirements, in April 2012 Nagoya University founded a new graduate school, the Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, by going beyond the traditional framework of departments divided along classical to create an integrated platform for science education and pharmaceutical reasearch. Until now, the development of human resources in pharmaceutical development and research has been conducted in the School and Graduate Schools of Science, Engineering, and Bioagricultural Sciences. Nagoya University boasts a particularly strong history of nurturing world-leading talent , in natural products chemistry, synthetic organic chemistry, and biology. The Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences is propelled by the cutting- edge fields of synthetic organic chemistry, which influences the design and composition of pharmaceutical products, of bioscience, which is the basis for disease and drug efficacy analysis, and of structural biology, which analyzes the molecular structure and mechanisms of proteins and their interaction with pharmaceutical products. We nurture leading researchers, through advanced research activities, allowing them to gain sophisticated skills in various fundamental academic fields, and to avoid taking the traditional single-specialization approach, instead encouraging them to adopte a broad approach towards pharmaceutical research.
The Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences will inherit the free and open vitality that characterizes of research and teaching at Nagoya University. We will incorporate academic fields, including the Schools and Graduate Schools of physics, Agriculture and Engineering, and we will , fully utilize the achievements that the coordination of these academic fields make possible. We hold as our educational ideal the principle of turning out great numbers of researchers essential to drug development who have been fully trained in interdisciplinary science and are able to lead the next generation. Our graduates have a number of career paths open to them, including the following: i) Further study in the Doctoral Course currently being founded; , ii) Researchers and Technical staffs in pharmaceutical/medical companies; , iii) Doctoral researchers in universities, national research centers, and companies; , iv) Entrepreneurs. At the Our entrance examination focuses on both basic scientific knowledge in chemistry and biology and ability in English comprehension and speaking.
