Taking over the outcome from FIRST Program

In July 2009, the Council for Science and Technology Policy in the Cabinet Office of Japan placed an open call for innovative research projects and received 565 applications. Thirty proposals were chosen, and their respective leading researchers and topics are referred to as the Top 30 and are expected to deliver results at the world’s highest level. This national project totaling ten billion Yen has been underway since March 2010. FIRST (Funding Program for World-Leading Innovative R&D on Science and Technology) was one of these meticulously selected Top 30 and it aimed to produce a complete molecular tumor-tracking proton therapy system in five years. So, it came to be the Proton Beam Therapy Center (PBTC) of Hokkaido University Hospital was established in March 2014 as the outstanding outcome of the FIRST program and has been treating patients ever since.billion yen had been underway since March 2010.

Coinciding with this new era of radiation therapy set about by FIRST, Hokkaido University also established an unprecedented faculty organization in 2014, the Global Station for Quantum Medical Science and Engineering (GSQ). First again, of what would eventually become six such stations falling under the umbrella of the forming Global Institutions for Collaborative Research and Education (GI-CoRE), the university aimed to add international reach to the project’s momentum. Under the direct control of the University President, world-class teaching staff from around the world and within the University are brought together to promote partnerships that leverage each member’s strengths and distinctive features. In the case of the GSQ, the state-of-the-art PBTC is joined by the Radiation Oncology Department of the world-renowned Stanford University School of Medicine.

Now, our Global Center for Biomedical Science and Engineering takes on the great achievements spearheaded by FIRST and the GI-CoRE, continuing the heritage in striving to develop and advance radiation and proton therapy into further territories still.