Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED)Japan-UK Workshop on Infectious Disease Research held in Tokyo
The Japan-UK Workshop on Infectious Disease Research was held in Tokyo on 21-22 January 2019. The workshop, organized by AMED and the UK’s Medical Research Council (MRC) in cooperation with the British Embassy in Tokyo, involved 24 scientists carrying out research in infectious diseases.
In attendance were twelve scientists from the UK and twelve from Japan. The purpose of the meeting was to inform the participants of current research on infectious diseases being conducted in major universities and institutes in each country, explore the potential for scientific collaboration between the two countries, and to establish new collaborative projects and to expand existing collaborative work.
The main focus of the second workshop was on untreatable infectious diseases causing damage to the central nervous system, immune system, cell cycle regulation, or overall homeostasis. The presentations covered various topics such as HTLV-1, HBV/HCV, the measles virus, SFTS-V, and bacterial, fungal, or protozoan infections.
This workshop was held under the Memorandum of Cooperation signed by AMED and the MRC in February 2017. AMED will continue to support international research collaborations with the UK.
As part of the Japan-UK statement issued after Prime Minister Abe’s visit to UK in January 2019, prime ministers of both countries welcomed ‘cooperation between Japan Agency for Medical Research and Development (AMED) and Medical Research Council (MRC) based on their MOC signed in 2017, and specifically joint work on infectious diseases and regenerative medicine starting in 2019’.
