Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University

The Medical Institute of Bioregulation, Kyushu University, has the aim to facilitate understanding of the essential regulatory mechanisms involved in human biology, at the cellular and molecular levels, with a long-term goal of curing diseases. Our institute is interested in exploring how individual cells regulate each other in the complex multi-cellular environments of the human body. Human bodies are constantly exposed to a variety of threats such as infection, environmental pollution, risks for life-style diseases and ageing. Yet, as long as homeostasis of the bodies is maintained, we can survive such threats. How do our bodies, organs, and cells counteract threats and prevent various disorders? We believe that the answers to this question will lead to cures for medical conditions including infection, cancer, allergies, autoimmune diseases, multi-factorial genetic disorders and degenerative diseases of the central nervous system.

The Medical Institute of Bioregulation was founded in April 1982, and underwent a major restructuring in April 2001, to better serve the above aims in this rapidly changing era. Three new departments and two research centers were established to replace the original departments. Since April 2010, the institute has been functioning as a Joint Usage / Research Center for the Multi-stratified Host Defense System, authorized by Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, Japan. Our state-of-the-art facilities provide researchers worldwide with various services including high-throughput DNA sequencing, microarray data collection, electron microscopic analysis, NMR analysis, proteomic analysis, generation of gene-modified animals and more. After several organizational restructuring, our institute now consists of three departments (the Department of Molecular Genetics, the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, and the Department of Immunology and Neuroscience) with six divisions, and three research centers (the Research Center for Transomics Medicine, the Multi-scale Research Center for Medical Science, and the Research Center for Prevention of Infectious Diseases) with fourteen divisions. In 2016, we have organized an institutional network among 4 Joint Usage / Research Centers in Japan for establishing a national center of Transomics Medicine. Our faculty members also contribute to the education of the Graduate School of Medical Sciences and the Graduate School of Systems Life Sciences of Kyushu University.

In 2012, the Medical Institute of Bioregulation celebrated its 30th Anniversary. In the 30 years of its history, the Institute has become one of the most active and productive research institutes in Japan and established its position as a world-known research institute for life science and medical science. Each division produces unique and novel findings every year and the faculty members and students publish many research papers in high-ranked journals such as Cell, Nature and Science. We also collaborate with other institutes and with the industry to further develop our findings and products for medical applications. We sincerely hope that our research activity will eventually contribute to the understanding of the complex pathological processes and the development of therapies to cure intractable diseases.