NISHIOKA Yasuhiko, M.D.,Ph.D.
Dean, Tokushima University Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences

 There are three Faculties and five Graduate Schools in the fields of medicine, oral sciences, pharmaceutical sciences, nutrition, and health sciences, and the Institute for Advanced Medical Sciences and Tokushima University Hospital on Tokushima University Kuramoto Campus where the unparalleled education and research center of life science and medicine has been created. In 2004 when the national universities were incorporated, the organization to which faculty members belonged was separated from the educational organization in Tokushima University, and the Institute of Health Bioscience (HBS) was established. From April 1, 2015, the name of the HBS was changed to the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences (BMS). As a result, all faculty members who previously belonged to the Faculties of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences have been affiliated with the BMS since then. From April 2017, as part of the governance reforms, the BMS has developed into an organization in charge of human resources and finance on Kuramoto Campus.
 With the completion of the "Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Multipurpose Building" in April 2020 and the "Biomedical Science Co-Creation Plaza" in 2023, facilities have been established to make the activities of the Division of Medicine, Dentistry, and Pharmaceutical Sciences visible. The "Co-Creation Plaza," in particular, boasts extensive facilities—including a skills lab of a scale among the largest in western Japan, an enhanced and expanded clinical anatomy lab, a nursing recurrent education center, an AI center, a PC center, and an international exchange space. It serves as an ideal hub for consolidating the Division's existing activities and driving their further development. We have now established an environment primed to invigorate research and education that transcends the boundaries of individual faculties and graduate schools, fostering cross-organizational and interdisciplinary collaboration.
 The goals of the BMS is to improve the undergraduate and graduate education and to promote interdisciplinary research on Kuramoto Campus by breaking down the silos between all Faculties and Graduate Schools and effectively assigning faculty members, and at the same time to form the foundation which conducts interdisciplinary research and to support it. All faculty members of the BMS make a concerted effort to accomplish the goals for years to come taking advantage of their expertise and specialty in each fields.