New Zealand Scientists Visit the University of Shizuoka

On July 2nd 2008, three distinguished scientists from New Zealand visited theUniversity of Shizuoka for an exchange of views about research in functional food. New
Zealand is a country in which functional food is an active area of research, and membersof the country’s research community have expressed an interest in carrying out
collaborative research with universities and other institutions in Japan. The New
Zealand researchers that visited the University of Shizuoka were Dr. Paul Moughan,
Director of Riddet Institute, Massey University; Dr. Margot Skinner, Science Leader ofFunctional Food & Health, HortResearch; and Dr. Julian Heyes, Science GroupManager of Fresh Whole Foods, Crop & Food Research. After a meeting with Dr.
Masaru Nishigaki, President of University of Shizuoka, several seminars were held.

In Seminar 1, Dr. Heyes gave a lecture entitled “Whole, fresh and functional: a New
Zealand perspective on vegetables and human health”, Dr. Skinner presented on“HortResearch-science discovering the goodness of fruit”, and Dr. Moughan introduced“The Riddet Institute – advancing knowledge in foods and biologicals”. Over forty people,
including Global COE program members, faculty, and graduate students participated in
the seminar. Afterwards, the scientists visited the laboratories at Graduate School ofPharmaceutical Sciences.

In the afternoon, Seminars 2 and 3 were held, in which four members of the Universityof Shizuoka Global COE program talked about the program’s four main research
projects. In Seminar 2, Dr. Hiroshi Oshima of the Laboratory of Biochemistry lectured
on “The search for new biomarkers and the development of methods for evaluating thesafety of food and medicine”, and Dr. Toshinao Goda of the Laboratory of NutritionalPhysiology

talkedon“Applicationsofbiomarkers

predicting

subnormal

metabolic/health status towards personalized nutrition/drug usage”. In Seminar 3, Dr.
Shizuo Yamada of the Laboratory of Pharmacokinetics and Pharmacodynamics talked
about the “Elucidation of the mechanisms of drug-functional food interactions anddatabase construction”, and Dr. Yasuyuki Imai of the Laboratory of Microbiology andImmunology discussed the “Development of functional food and effective use of
undeveloped resources after food processing”. After that, the scientists from New
Zealand visited the laboratories of the Graduate School of Nutritional andEnvironmental Sciences.

An informal meeting to facilitate further discussion was held in the evening. It wasattended by twenty people, including the three New Zealand scientists and two otherguests, Global COE program leader Dr. Naohide Kinae, and professors from theUniversity of Shizuoka.

The organizer of the exchange, Dr. Tsutomu Nakayama of the Graduate School of
Nutritional and Environmental Sciences, would like to thank the three distinguishedresearchers for visiting the university, and would also like to thank the Ministry ofEducation, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology for arranging preparatory meetings
between the two countries.

Comments received from the New Zealand scientists:
We have received comments from the New Zealand scientists stating that, as there aremany scientists at the University of Shizuoka conducting research closely related totheir own fields of investigation, they would like to strengthen the relationship that has
been established with these researchers, and would like to actively promote exchangewith the university.

(Written by Tetsuji Yamakawa, Satoko Nakai, and Philip Hawke)