EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT

Having its origin in a pharmaceutical company, our university only has the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences, and devotes itself to improving our pharmaceutical education and research.

The Research Center for Pharmaceutical Education

Division of Research for Pharmacy Students Education

Virtually every student belonging to the six-year education course has intention to obtain a pharmacist license. The first objective of our division is providing the learning support for all students to pass the national examination for pharmacists on their first trial. We consist of specialists for pharmaceutical education and provide a unique and special training program to highly motivated students who are anxious about passing the national examination and also provide the learning strategy for individuals in need of special support. Our division constantly engaged in analyzing the trends of new drug information and of the national examination, and takes those into consideration to our original examination. We also participate in the curriculum planning in order to catch up with changes around pharmaceutical world. Accordingly, our division makes a contribution for our university to keep high ratio of successful applicants to the national examination for pharmacist.

Division of Applied Pharmaceutical Education and Research

The goal of our clinical pharmacy education is the development of high-quality pharmacists, not only through the practical training of students in unique participative classes such as small group discussions, but also through focusing on postgraduate education. In other words, we support the education and research of pharmacists after their graduation by providing them with opportunities to learn communication skills, latest techniques and medical information required for specific fields such as chemical therapies for cancer, infection control in hospitals, medication counseling for psychiatric patients, nutrition support teams (NST) and so on.

Division of Pharmacy Professional Development and Research

This division is to form a research unit in the clinical system and basic science faculty. Our mission is to solve various clinical questions that are actually occurring in clinics. We have been investigating the clinical and basic questions by performing clinical and fundamental studies. Subsequently, we are attempting to carry the research findings from bench/bed to bed/bench side (i.e. Translational Research/Reverse Translational Research). At present, our research is to elucidate of data-mining for professional improvement of pharmacists, the pathogenesis of allergic disease, side effects of anti-cancer drugs, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), mechanism of elastic fiber formation and regeneration of elastic fibers, the effect of extracellular matrix on cell function, and so on. We have been working closely with medical institutions, professional associations, and research institutes.

Division of Comprehensive and Fundamental Pharmaceutical Education and Research

The division has two major missions: “all students acquire fundamental pharmaceutical knowledge” and “raising the pass rate of National Examination for Pharmacists”. To achieve the missions, the division staff will prepare special program based on the scholastic data of student achievement, and give individual guidance. Students might be assigned to the division, if they have weak points in any categories, subjects, and/or fields of the pharmaceutical curriculum. In many cases, students don’t notice their weak points by themselves. The staff also supports the cultivation of self-learning abilities and the establishment of a learning habit for updating the knowledge of pharmaceutical sciences during their lifetime. The staff also welcomes students who are grappling with the questions at learning.

Center for Education of Laboratory Training

The aim of the center is to develop talented students with problem solving ability. For this purpose, we support students to learn to build a plan for experiments, experimental skill, consideration for observations, and presentation or description of experiments. Our role is the planning of training contents, including schedule or teaching groups, the management of training room and training costs, and making training texts. We also have been investigating the fundamental aspects of tissue regeneration. The various functions of the cells that comprise our bodies are maintained by tissue microenvironments centered on extracellular matrices that are proteins found between our cells or on cell membranes. We are endeavoring to accomplish tissue regeneration through the up-regulation of cellular activity and the replenishment of extracellular matrix components in order to improve cell functions that have deteriorated due to illness or aging, while establishing new methods of diagnosis.