Shinanomachi in June | Toru Takebayashi, Dean of the Graduate School of Health Management
June 23, 2020
COVID-19 continues its global pandemic, with over 150,000 new cases reported daily worldwide. Amidst this, the Keio University School of Medicine and Hospital have launched the "Keio Donner Project" to overcome this challenge.
Donner is the German word for "thunder." The name originates from Shibasaburo Kitasato, the first Dean of the School of Medicine , who was called "Professor Donner" with awe by his students for his consistently rigorous scientific approach. Kitasato achieved world-renowned success in the prevention and treatment of many infectious diseases, including tetanus and diphtheria (it is even said that had it been today, Kitasato would have been a co-recipient of the first Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine). It was also Kitasato who, in 1894, discovered the plague bacillus, the causative agent of the plague that was causing the third pandemic in history in Hong Kong (at the same time as Alexandre Yersin of the Pasteur Institute in France). Dispatched by the Japanese government, Kitasato accomplished the discovery of the causative agent in a short period despite the extremely poor conditions of the dissection room. More importantly, even when the Japanese delegation accompanying him was at risk of contracting the plague, he remained on-site to continue his research on preventive measures, contributing to the prevention of a subsequent major outbreak in Japan. Thus, Kitasato was a man who not only identified the causes of diseases but also consistently worked with a view to the prevention for society as a whole.
Following this example, Dean Amagai of the School of Medicine named and initiated the Keio Donner Project . From research to elucidate the outbreak of infection at the university hospital, studies focusing on neutralizing antibodies among serum antibodies that can suppress the virus, and research on intestinal bacteria, to the development of therapies using COVID-19 convalescent plasma and clinical trials of various drugs, this project, which researchers and physicians at the Shinanomachi Campus are tackling with all their might, is the very embodiment of the integrated basic and clinical research where "those in basic and clinical medical sciences cooperate as if they were one family," an ideal that Kitasato advocated as the first Dean of the School of Medicine. We eagerly await the day when the results of this project reach society.