Director of Institute for Life and Medical Sciences, Kyoto University
Hiroshi Kawamoto

The Japanese name of this institute has been drastically changed from “Virus-Saisei-Ikagaku Kenkyu-sho (meaning Institute for Virus and Regenerative Medicine)” to “I-Seibutsugaku Kenkyu-sho (meaning Institute for Medical Biology)” since April, 2022. On the other hand, formal English name of this institute has been just slightly changed from “Institute for Frontier Life and Medical Sciences” to “Institute for Life and Medical Sciences”, just deleting “Frontier”. I will explain how the original name and new name was given and the thoughts put in the new name.

Process of integration of two institutes and renaming
First, I will outline the process. The Institute for Frontier Life and Medical Sciences was established in October 2016 by integrating the Institute for Virus Research (Virus-Kenkyu-sho) and the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences (Saisei-Ikagaku Kenkyu-sho). In general, reorganizations in the form of integration often are driven by some negative factors such as scale reduction; however, this integration did not have any such factors, rather representing an evolving integration. At the time of the integration, we of course had a vigorous discussion on the name of new institute, but the core members of the institute and the headquarters of Kyoto University have decided that the names of both laboratories could just be lined up one after the other, for the time being. Subsequently, discussions continued regarding the new name after the integration, and the name was changed at this occasion, five and a half years after the integration.

History up to integration
Prior to the integration, each institution had expressed a strong presence in the academia world. The Institute for Virus Research, established in 1956, had led not only virology but also the whole field of molecular biology, and the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences, originally established in 1941 as Tuberculosis Research Institute, had led a wide range of fields including not only regenerative medicine but also immunology and bioengineering. For example, the Institute of Viruses has produced Dr. Yorio Hinuma, who discovered the causative virus of adult T-cell leukemia, and the Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences has produced Dr. Shinya Yamanaka, who invented iPS cells, and Dr. Shimon Sakaguchi, who discovered regulatory T cells.

Background that led to the integration
In recent years, life science has undergone major changes, and it becomes difficult to be competitive in academic field with the research activity conducted solely by individual laboratories. In order to develop as a research institute, it is necessary to create a strategy by looking ahead of the times, to accordingly re-build the organization, and to proceed with personnel affairs in line with the strategy. Such a strategy requires a certain size of personnel, and the integration has made it easier to pursue such a strategy. Currently, the number of whole workers, that of faculty members, and that of professors, is about 300, 80, and 20, respectively.
In terms of re-organization of structure, for the time of integration in 2016, we have newly established the “Department of Biosystem Sciences”, in addition to the department of the virus research and the regenerative medicine,. This is the core department that is expected to develop new academic fields. In accordance with this, we have been putting a lot of effort into personnel affairs, such as recruiting young professors majoring in structural biology or theoretical biology, which we think has been very successful up to now. These activities have been carried out mainly under the leadership of Professor Yuji Hiraki (previous director), and Professor Yoshio Koyanagi (former director), who were the directors of each research institute at the time of the integration.

Thoughts put in the word “I-Seibutsu-gaku (Medical Biology)”
Well, many people have been involved in determining the new name of institute “I-Seibutsu-gaku” (Medical Biology), and I think each one has different thoughts. Here, I will describe my personal opinion by summarizing what I felt during the discussion. I think the name of the new research institute more or less sounds old-fashioned with the word “Seibutsu-gaku (Biology)”, since at present the word “Life Science” is often used for the similar meaning. Indeed, as it sounds, I think that this name proposes the idea of “emphasizing the viewpoint of biology”.
For example, suppose you clarify a part of the mechanisms of the immune response caused by lymphocytes in mice. It can be said that, for example, it is a medical point of view to think about how it is related to diseases and how it leads to drug development, while it is a biological point of view to think about the evolutionary origin of the mechanism. Recently, there is a tendency for research activities to require a so-called “exit” like the former examples, but the essence of research is to get answer to the intellectual curiosity of human beings, and I think there exist fundamental fun there. There also may exist a point that research that seeks fun is more likely to lead to a big leap than the one that seeks actual profit.

Launch of a new “Joint Usage/Research Center”
Now, I will talk about the function as a so-called “Joint Center”. Many public research institutes also function as bases for providing equipment, facilities, research methods, materials etc., to domestic and foreign researchers. As a system, it is supported by the government as a “Joint Usage / Joint Research Center”, or a “Joint Center” for short. The Regenerative Medicine Institute for Virus Research and Institute for Frontier Medical Sciences had exerted the functions of research bases for virus research and regenerative medicine, respectively, and the integrated research institute has separately maintained the functions of the two bases. At the same time as this renaming, the two joint centers have been integrated, and a new base called “Virus / Stem Cell System Medical Biology Joint Research Center” has been launched since April, 2022. While the new name of the institute has been simplified to be short, the name of the new joint center has been lengthened by incorporating the roles it plays. As a core project of this center, we have established a mechanism to financially support collaborations between the faculty members of this institute and outer researchers by up to 1 million yen per case, and in 2022, we adopted 30 projects as a result of the open call for participants.

Afterword
Although the function as joint center has been renewed as mentioned above in parallel with renaming of the center, the fundamental strategy that has been created after the integration will be basically inherited as it is, and thus we are not making major re-organization related to the renaming. However, taking the opportunity to change the name, all the staff members will strive hard together in unison so as to lead the era, with a sense of ownership as a member of “the research institute that has built the history of biology”.