Greetings

Pharmacology in a medical school has two important roles: to educate students to acquire basic knowledge for correct pharmacotherapy in clinical practice after graduation from medical school and to establish a foundation for pharmacotherapy for diseases for which no treatment exists yet. Pharmacology is also essential to medical science as it supports the foundation of all medical and surgical care.
In addition, with the explosive progress in molecular biological research in recent years, the pathophysiology of various diseases has been clarified one after another. With the emergence of molecular-targeted drugs and first-in-class drugs based on new drug design concepts, pharmacology has entirely changed from what it was 10 or 20 years ago. Pharmacology has become a field attracting much attention from both social and medical perspectives.
The history of Department of Pharmacology at Tokyo Medical University is very old, having been established in May 1924, when the Professor Saburo Hara was appointed as Chief Professor. Professor Masaaki Matsuoka was appointed the 4th Chief Professor in 2009, and Kosuke Kanakura was appointed the 5th Chief Professor in April 2023. The Department of Pharmacology at Tokyo Medical University has been conducting "pharmacological research on the function of the central nervous system" since the time of Professor Hara, and Professor Matsuoka has made outstanding achievements in the development of therapeutic drugs targeting Alzheimer's disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Inheriting this tradition, we will make every effort to elucidate the causes of neurodegenerative diseases, especially amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, and to develop treatments for these diseases.

Kohsuke Kanekura, M.D., Ph.D
Professor, Department of pharmacology, Tokyo Medical University

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