Biomedical engineering collaboration with Japanese university returns to Carolina
October 15, 2024UNC Global Affairs
At UNC-Chapel Hill, students and faculty have opportunities to participate in enriching international academic exchange — sharing ideas, methods and perspectives on global challenges. One of these exchanges involves biomedical engineering education and research with Nagoya University. The “Convolution of Informatics and Biomedical Sciences on Global Alliances (CIBoG) Summer Biomedical Engineering (BME)” program took place Sept. 8-15.
Students and faculty from Nagoya University in Japan traveled to North Carolina for the program, the second time UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University (NC State) have organized it with Nagoya University’s WISE (World-leading Innovative and Smart Education) doctoral program. The BME department is a joint initiative between UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State. Paul Dayton, department chair, and Koji Sode, professor, organized the program with UNC Global Affairs. BME collaborates with students and faculty all over the world. Sode’s lab, for example, hosts research fellows from many parts of the world, including Japan, Korea, Indonesia, Germany and China.
“Like all scientists, I recognize that I have limitations,” Sode said in 2022. “My visions are bigger than what I can do alone. I need perspectives and knowledge from experts in other countries and from different cultures. Global collaboration is key to achieving a bigger vision in biomedical engineering.”
The one-week program, designed to be an immersive experience, enables visiting students and faculty to engage with the Carolina research community and explore the wealth of academic and industry knowledge available in the Research Triangle.
Chisato Fujisawa, a lecturer at Nagoya University, highlighted the productive discussions with BME colleagues regarding her research “on the decline of physical function in patients with Alzheimer’s disease,” which demonstrated how international collaboration is central to solving shared challenges like Alzheimer’s disease.
While in North Carolina, Nagoya students expressed a keen interest in how their research could be commercialized. Dayton provided several examples of BME startups that were incubated at Carolina, many of which received support from Innovate Carolina, Launch Chapel Hill and Carolina’s network of angel investors. The BME department offers opportunities for industry engagement and commercialization within the Research Triangle Park. Graduate students from Nagoya presented their research at a reception in the FedEx Global Education Center. Their poster presentations detailed BME research interests such as brain function, aging, organ tissue analysis and shellfish allergies.
Nagoya student Yunheng Wu detailed a novel method of reconstructing 3D models of organoids from 2D tissue scans using a machine learning model trained on historical data. Takumi Kagawa, another Nagoya student, discussed with Carolina faculty the differences between what is considered shellfish by Japanese and by Americans.
Barbara Stephenson, vice provost for global affairs and chief global officer, who hosted the event, spoke to Carolina’s commitment to collaboration with Nagoya and praised the work that Dayton and Sode have accomplished in fulfilling the global mission of the joint BME department.
Previous collaborations between Carolina and Nagoya include the Women’s Undergraduate Cybersecurity Engagement Program, the Nagoya Summer Medical Program and a Visiting Scholar Agreement, which allows Nagoya doctoral candidates in medicine to study with the UNC-NC State Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering.
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