Graduate School
Outline
Veterinary science is comprehensive animal science with veterinary medicine as its core. It concerns a wide range of organisms, from pathogens such as viruses, bacteria, and parasites to human beings, and their structures and functions at the levels of molecules, cells, tissues, and individuals. Therefore, veterinary science has an aspect as a foundation for life sciences.
Contemporary society, full of various stresses, even requires further advancement of medical treatment of companion animals, which are family members for many people.
We are also witnessing the emergence of various problems and challenges concerning the welfare and safety of regional society, including the risk that the increased volume of human and animal transportation and logistics due to the high level of international exchanges will cause zoonoses to spread, the wider spread of infectious diseases of animal origin due to large-scale stockbreeding, the need to use biotechnology to increase the productivity and efficiency of stockbreeding and develop new drugs, and the safety assessment of thus produced foods and drugs.
Against these backdrops, the concept of “One Health” has been advocated as a condition achieved at the intersection of human health, animal health, and environmental health, heightening public expectations of veterinary science.
The Graduate School of Veterinary Science aims to develop human resources who can help solve these various problems and challenges by leading the frontier of comprehensive animal science and contribute to state-of-the-art advanced veterinary medicine, structural and functional exploration of animals, food safety, and prevention of infectious diseases. The Graduate School also aims to share innovative research achievements with the world.
Features of the Curriculum
The Department of Veterinary Medicine offers common subjects to enable all students to understand the importance of bioethics, animal ethics, and research ethics and acquire ability in logical thinking, skills in presenting their research results in English, and advanced research capabilities necessary to write a thesis. In addition, to provide specialized education, the Department has three courses: the Course of Structural and Functional Biosciences for Animals, the Course of Veterinary Environmental Sciences, and the Course of Veterinary Clinical Sciences.
Course of Structural and Functional Biosciences for Animals
This course is intended for students who want to work as professionals at pharmaceutical, chemicals, and food manufacturers and other companies or as educators/researchers. It enables them to acquire deep knowledge about the morphological and functional mechanisms of the maintenance of animal life and the occurrence of animal diseases. Furthermore, to develop specialists with capabilities necessary to examine, analyze, and solve various problems concerning human health, the course provides students with a research environment necessary to explore a wide range of vital phenomena.
Course of Veterinary Environmental Sciences
As an international course where students can earn credits from subjects all taught in English, this course aims to develop human resources who can serve as global leaders in the fields of food safety, zoonoses, and livestock hygiene. Moreover, the course conducts research and education activities in active collaboration with not only Research Center for Food Safety and Asian Health Science Research Institute, both of which are virtual research institutes in Osaka Metropolitan University, but also universities and research institutes abroad and government bodies and industries in Japan.
Course of Veterinary Clinical Sciences
In conformity with the principle of One Health, which the Graduate School of Veterinary Science embraces, this course provides students with a favorable environment for research whose results can be applied to animal and human medicine. By doing so, the course aims to develop specialists who have deep knowledge about various diseases in different animals and can propose new methods of analyzing, diagnosing, and treating those diseases’ symptoms. In addition, the course has an advanced clinical practice track designed to develop human resources who can play leading roles in regional veterinary medicine. In this track, the subject of Special Lecture on Medicine for Companion Animals is offered to enable students to participate in a practical veterinary clinical program at the Veterinary Medical Center.