Nagasaki University

Nagasaki University (長崎大学, Nagasaki daigaku) is a national university of Japan. Its nickname is Chōdai (長大). The main campus is located in Bunkyo-machi, Nagasaki City, Nagasaki Prefecture, Japan.

Nagasaki University was established in 1949 by incorporating several national institutions, namely, Nagasaki Medical College (including College Hospital and College of Pharmaceutical Sciences), Nagasaki College of Economics, Nagasaki Normal School, Nagasaki Youth Normal School and Nagasaki High School.

The new main campus (Bunkyo Campus) was formerly a plant site of Mitsubishi Arms Factory (Ohashi Plant).

The oldest of the predecessors was Nagasaki Medical College. It was founded in November 1857 as Medical Training Institute (医学伝習所, Igaku denshūsho) by the branch office of Tokugawa Shogunate. The first professor was J. L. C. Pompe van Meerdervoort, and the institute was one of the first western-style (not Kampō) medical schools in Japan. In 1861 the hospital was founded, and after Meiji Restoration the school became a public (prefectural, later national) medical school. It was developed into Nagasaki Vocational School of Medicine (長崎医学専門学校, Nagasaki igaku senmon gakkō) in 1901, then into Nagasaki Medical College (長崎医科大学, Nagasaki ika daigaku) in 1923.

After Japan participated in the Pacific War, the medical college added several institutes for the war, such as Temporary College of Medicine (1940) and East Asia Research Institute of Endemics (1942, Institute of Tropical Medicine today). On August 9, 1945 the college was heavily damaged by the atomic bomb, because it was located only 500 to 700 meters away from the hypocenter. Over 800 professors, students and medical workers were killed. The college was moved to Omura in September 1945, and then to Isahaya in 1946. The old campus (Sakamoto Campus) was restored later in 1950, after the college was integrated into Nagasaki University.

The Institute of Tropical Medicine (長崎大学熱帯医学研究所], NEKKEN or NUITM) was originally founded under Nagasaki Medical College to perform basic and applied studies on endemic diseases in East Asia. In 1949, the institute merged with other facilities to form Nagasaki University under the new ruling of the National School Establishment Law.

Since 1946, researchers at NUITM have conducted fundamental and applied studies on tropical and emerging diseases. This includes infectious disease epidemiology studies and vaccine and therapeutics development against infectious diseases. Researchers at NUITM have established several international research partnerships, including in Vietnam the Philippines, and Kenya, to study emerging and re-emerging diseases. The institute has research stations in Vietnam and Kenya, and of note, the field research conducted in Kenya has inspired a popular song, novel, and charity foundation, and has been featured in a film, The Lion Standing in the Wind.

As one of the world's leading institutes for training and research in tropical medicine and health care, it is stipulated as a Joint Usage/ Research Center under the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) to spear-head academic research, and is a member of the Japan Infectious Disease Research Consortium that includes Institute of Medical Science (Japan), Osaka University and Hokkaido University.