Kanagawa Cancer Center
After starting the morning out with a hot bottle of coffee, a visit to my favorite little shrine, and a walk along the Toyouku flower greenway, I met the group for our day’s visits. First, we took a long hike to the Sotetsu line and headed out to the Kanagawa Cancer Center. Here we learned about the trends of cancer occurrence in an aging population from a group led by Dr. Narimatsu, chief of the Cancer Prevention and Control Division and direct of the Division of Genetic Medicine at the cancer center. One big takeaway I had here was that while older women were at greater risk for most varieties of cancer studied than older men, men have a higher incidence of lung cancer since they have a higher likelihood of a smoking history.
In the afternoon, we took a maze of taxis, trains and busses to the Kanagawa University of Human Services School of Health Innovation. Here, we enjoyed a series of presentations that gave us a broader understanding of Mi-Byo research and its implementation in Kanagawa prefecture. We also got the opportunity to learn about the program at this school. Hearing Yu Sakamoto’s story of being involved in pharmaceutical regulation with the government, then signing on at Japan’s Merk subsidiary, and now enrolling in the program at the School of Health Innovation to learn from a broad range of backgrounds and perspectives resonated with my process and reasoning for pursuing higher education.
We students (and Taka-sensei, who is most certainly not a student) got to give a brief presentation on our work to the school as well. I kicked it off with a headshot of me eating the Maryland food, crabs, and then talked about a project I’m involved with studying the difference in chronic outcomes of traumatic brain injury in young versus aged mice at a cellular level. It was wonderful getting to hear the work my peers our doing in a more formal setting, and I just want to say that Eric and Matt pitched there job so well that maybe I should think about being a P.A. instead. Once the day was over, we wandered toward Haneda airport, got to stop for a brief introduction and some beautiful views at Kanagawa Life innovation Center, and I took a train out for a solo evening in Ginza.
Benjamin Grissom
PhD Student in Molecular Medicine