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Chairperson's Introduction

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Recent Publications (Selected)

Graduate Course & Medical School Course and Scholarships

Establishment of International exchange programs in medical education and scientific activities

Japanese

Graduate Course & Medical School Course and Scholarships

 

1)Medical School Course

Our department has introduced a practice course by using live parasites ( such as Plasmodium, Toxoplasma, Leishmania, Trichomonas, Ascaris, Anisakis, Trichuri, Trichinella, Paragonimus, etc.) and live animal hosts ( such as mice and human volunteers) to realize parasite biology, parasitic infections and also the clinical parasitology as a boundary area of basic medicine and clinical medicine. Thirty six percent of the total courses of Parasitology( 44 units per year, 90min per unit) were arranged to these practices.

Infection experiments with live parasites and hosts are intended to observe not simply parasitism phenomena and the worms but also the host defense mechanism by analyzing the time course of infections. Observation and analysis of the antibody formation and the cellular immunity of hosts infected by parasites are one of the major subjects of parasitology. We believe this type of practical education in parasitology is ranked as the top level of all of the Japanese medical universities and colleges.

The seminar style lecture is also a unique subject of Parasitology. A couple of students can take this course in which the students do a research project of the parasite and host defence through a year in the Department. Then the students give a seminar in the class by presenting their data, and rest of students discuss the data. Following trials are tentatively done; 1) one examination ( two times per year) is designed by the students themselves, 2) the lecture of parasitology is evaluated by the students.

As the area of tropical medicne is vast, experts of tropical medcine such as Prof. Isao Tada,Kyushu University(Onchoserca adn World Health), Prof. Somei Kojima,Tokyo University(Schistosomiasis), Prof. Hiroji Kanbara, Nagasaki University(Tropical protozology), Prof. Mamoru Terada, Hamamatsu Medical College are invited to give lectures for not only medical students but also clinicians.

Prof. Yano is organizing 2 courses of general educations entitled " Consider Life Style in all aspects ( 90 min x 30 times per year)" and " Self Defence Mechanism ( 60 min x 14 times per Year)" for 1st and 2nd grade students of all Schools of Chiba University. Asoc. Prof. Aosai give lectures ( Host Defence, Allergy and Infection; 90 min x 2 times) in the general education course" Self Defence Mechanisms" .

2) Graduate Course

Graduate Course " Infection Mechanisms and Immunity" has a total 8 graduates students including graduate students from clinical Departments of Chiba University, that is, from the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the Department of 1st Surgery, and the Department of Plastic Surgery. Every Wednesday, the data meeting and staff's lectures for graduate students have been held.

Following subjects are current studies( see II. 1 in detail);

A. Mechanisms of antigen presentation by cells infected with intracellular parastic protozoan, Toxoplasma gondii ( T.gondii)

B. Analysis of T cell epitopes bound to MHC class I of T.gondii-infected cells

C. Roles of HSP70 in antigen presentation

D. Congenital toxoplasmosis in Japan

F. Virulency of T.gondii and the effector mechanisms of anti-T.gondii immunity by CTL

G. Melanocytes as a professional antigen presentiong cell controling the pathogenicity of toxoplasmosis and Vogt-Koyanagi-Harada disease (VKH)

3) Scholarships for the students of Graduate Course " Infection Mechanisms and Immunity"

Scholarships of Japanese Government, Foundations are available to apply after the entrance of the Graduate Course. Department and private suports is available to apply only for the students of Graduate Course " Infection Mechanisms and Immunity".