12 Best Biology Master's Degree Programs in Japan for 2024

This division conducts, on the basis of physics, chemistry and biology and their interdisciplinary field, cutting-edge studies on the structure and variation mechanisms of the environment and ecosystems in coastal waters and their related environmental issues, and pollution and toxic effects of hazardous chemicals on a regional and a global scale.

This division provides education programs focusing on protein sciences and has four main lecture contents that are grappled with in Proteo-Science Center: infections molecular science, photo-life science, molecular life science, and protein function science.

Specialized Theory: Veterinary Infectious Disease, Wildlife Medicine and Conservation, Physiology for Veterinary Technician, Molecular Genetics, Public Health, Veterinary Microbiology, Animal Ecology – Specialized Seminar: Bioscience for Veterinary Nursing – Specialized Study: Bioscience for Veterinary Nursing – Special lecture: Veterinary Nursing and Technology

This department aims to nurture specialists who can contribute to medical care, as well as researchers in the field of clinical pharmacy. During the first semester, students are required to take specialized subjects in clinical pharmacy. During the next six months, they learn and practice the work performed by pharmacists on hospital wards at affiliated hospitals. During their second year, students work on a research topic at SPU or a teaching hospital under the guidance of their advisor and write a master's thesis.

Students in this department aim to acquire specialized learning in pharmaceutical sciences and research abilities, focusing on basic pharmaceutical sciences. The curriculum is composed of eight lectures on specialized topics, seminars, and specialized experiments. Students take the required credits, work on their own research topic under the guidance of their academic advisor, and write a master's thesis.

To elucidate the brain functions, it is essential not only to conduct micro-level research such as the conduction of electrical signals and chemical transmission by neurotransmitters, but also the system-level research on how they “function as a circuit” and “connect to actual thoughts and actions.” The Department of Physiology 2 grapples with this arduous but interesting problem by utilizing primates whose brain structure is similar to that of humans, by electrophysiological and pharmacological approaches. The current main theme is the elucidation of mechanisms by which emotion, memory, and attention change the decision-making process and actions. We dream of discovering the universal principle of calculation processing in the brain.

Our laboratory investigates regulatory mechanisms of immune-cell trafficking (adhesion and migration). Adhesion molecules integrins play important roles in lymphocyte homing to peripheral lymphoid organs and leukocyte migration through the inflamed endothelium, and adhesive interactions to antigen-presenting cells. We identified small GTPase Rap1 as a crucial regulator of integrin-dependent cell attachment and migration during these processes. We further clarified the Rap1 signaling pathway to integrins, which abnormal regulation led to a breakdown of self-tolerance due to impaired thymocyte selections and regulatory T cells development and functions. Combined with mice models of immune diseases, we are developing various tissue imaging methods and pursuing therapeutic strategies of intractable immune diseases by controlling immune cell adhesion.

Aiming to solve the various problems related to global environmental change, the management of marine life and submarine resources and shallow water environmental preservation, the importance of oceanographic observation and marine bioprospecting is increasing more and more. On the other hand, there is an increasing number of researchers who get involved solely in existing data analysis and theoretical research, without having any field experience, a fact that also raises concern about the negative effect of missing important discoveries. These are difficult to achieve by researchers who don't have the experience in observation and research by ship, indispensable especially in ocean field research. In this program, taking advantage of the characteristic feature of this university, which is having a training ship, through training in observation and research not only along the coast but also in the ocean, through practice and internships on the research ship, opportunities to participate in observation and research in the marine field are created for students enrolled in the Master's and Doctoral Course, who aim at various research fields. Thanks to this, while making them aware of the meaning of field research, they acquire a wide-range of knowledge and advanced skills, and the program aims at fostering ship engineers and researchers who are able to perform well in international collaborative research.

The School of Life Science offers a variety of subjects in the fields of nutrition science for health enhancement and management, architecture for living environment, and biology for the regional environment. Students are supposed to learn about and understand the relationship between academic study and livelihood.

bioengineering is the field in which the organisms find and dexterous functions such as recognition, transmission, movement, and biosynthesis are investigated, and its outcome is employed for practical applications. Bioengineering major has been established to train students as high-leveled established engineers or researchers who are experts in the basics and application of biology-related sciences. Courses offered are planned to provide knowledge in wide areas of both basics and applications.

Students explore indigenous cultures of the world, including courses in history, folklore, geography, archeology, art history, cultural assets studies, and others. They engage in fieldwork such as the excavation of Suwahara in Yamanashi, research on the Toshodai-ji documents, and the research and preservation of cultural heritage sites in Vietnam.

The master’s program consists of five courses: “Biology”, “Biochemistry & Molecular Biology”, “Applied Biosciences”, “Agriculture & Horticulture”, and “Agricultural & Environmental Engineering”.