Kitasato University

In 1962, the Kitasato University was founded to mark the 50th anniversary of the Kitasato Institute, Japan’s first private medical research facility.

It was named after Kitasato Shibasaburo, who was nominated for the Nobel Prize in physiology in 1901. Some 114 years later, the 2015 Nobel Prize in the same subject was awarded to a professor at the university, Satoshi Omura.

It is now known as Japan’s leading university in the study of life sciences, with the aims of advancing the discovery and use of biological resources and promoting environmental conservation.

The majority of its educational facilities are based on the Sagamihara campus, in Minato (population: 240,000), 60km west of central Tokyo. Minato is home to many Japanese company headquarters such as Honda, Mitsubish, NEC, Sony, Fujitsu and Toshiba.

As well as a school of pharmacy, school of medicine, school of nursing, school of allied health sciences (in the school of medical sciences), school of veterinary medicine, school of biosciences and school of science, there are seven graduate schools, two research institutes and four hospitals.

The new Kitasato University Hospital was established in 2014, on the Sagamihara campus, offering cutting-edge regional medical care to residents. The school of veterinary medicine also benefitted from the addition of a new building on the Towanda campus.

Its practical research specialisms are in inter professional health care programmes, research and education for infection control, research and education in agriculture and clinical education and research through inter hospital collaboration.

Kitasato University has worked to establish itself within an international network and has launched and maintains exchange agreements with 29 universities and institutes worldwide including in China, Mongolia, Korea, Thailand, the USA, Germany and Italy.