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President
of Nagasaki University
Hiroshi
Saito
M.D., Ph.D.
President's Profile
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AccessNova/GEMnet2 Symposium
President’s address
May 31, 2006
Distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, as the President of Nagasaki University, I have great pleasure of joining you in this special occasion to celebrate the opening of “Access Nova/GEMnet2 Symposium”.
In old days, Nagasaki was one of the few places in Japan that could enjoy Asian and European cultures and sciences due to its proximity to the Eurasian continent.
Even during a period of national isolation enforced by the Tokugawa shogunate, which separated Japan from most foreign countries, only Nagasaki was allowed to play an important role in connecting Japan with other nations.
The prosperity brought by those trading partners appealed to a large number of young people from all over Japan to come to Nagasaki.
An exotic town of Nagasaki was created under such historical background.
The history of Nagasaki University goes all the way back to November 12th, 1857 when a Dutch naval surgeon, Dr. Pompe, established Igaku-Denshusho which was the oldest medical school in Japan.
Although Nagasaki Medical College Igaku-Denshusho was completely demolished on August 9th 1945 by the atomic bomb, it miraculously revived like a phoenix.
Now Nagasaki University has grown into a major university that comprises eight faculties (Education, Economics, Medicine, Dentistry, Pharmaceutical Sciences, Engineering, Environmental Studies, and Fisheries), affiliated hospitals and Libraries, and the Institute of Tropical Medicine.
Nagasaki University now has 9,000 students including some 300 international students from Asia, Africa, and other parts of the world.
One of the missions of Nagasaki University is to contribute to harmonious development of human welfare and global peace by educating students with distinguished abilities.
To achieve this mission, we have been collaborating with researchers in Russia and Kenya on radiation medicine and infectious diseases, respectively. We have also been working on remote medical services for people on isolated islands.
Meanwhile, because of the geographical features of the locations, we are not able to communicate at symposia or conferences as often with researchers in local cities as with those in Tokyo. Needless to say, opportunities to contact overseas scientists are even fewer.
As one of the solutions to this problem, I expect you kindly offer us rapid remote network service as a means of on-demand communication.
I hope a new network service that operates faster than G-bit will soon be a reality so that we can get in touch with both domestic and international research groups smoothly and clearly, without feeling the distance.
In order to make the high-speed network services available for the general public as well, I look forward to the success of the experiments you have been undertaking toward this end.
Thank you for the attention.
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