We are leading dentistry and dental treatments in the new era. The eagerness of researchers with a firm vision of the future and continuous research full of creativity in specific areas are vital for the progress and development of dentistry and dental treatment. The MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine was established in April 2003 with the aim of developing interdisciplinary researchers and highly specialized dental professionals who are capable of responding flexibly to the rapidly changing social environment of the 21st century, with abundant interdisciplinary knowledge and highly specialized skills.

Oral Medicine Research (the Ph.D. course) was founded within the MDU Institute for Oral Science, and the school provides its own original postgraduate education with excellent teaching staff and the latest research equipment and facilities of the institute.

MDU’s postgraduate students are selected not only from recent university graduates, but also from among those who graduated some time ago. For this latter group, the school provides evening lectures and training and intensive lectures and training designed for long leaves from employment. In these ways the graduate school vigorously supports students who are eager to study dentistry.

Many people view postgraduate education and research in Japan as being self-contained because they are an extension of education in the departments of the university.

To overcome this problem, the MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine has adopted an independent research system to perform the latest and interdisciplinary research based on the MDU Institute for Oral Science, rather than on the undergraduate departments. The MDU Institute for Oral Science has three research divisions: hard tissue, oral and maxillofacial, and clinical dentistry and social dentistry, all of which are major fields of dentistry. The three divisions have the Hard Tissue Research course, the Oral and Maxillofacial Biology course, and the Oral Health Promotion course. The thirteen units of the graduate school are separated according to research purpose. The school provides a mix of basic and clinical education, and has one Oral Medicine Research chair.

The MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine is the first general and comprehensive dental postgraduate school in Japan. The school maintains an interdisciplinary formation with communication between related research fields, regardless of undergraduate departments.

Features of the MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine
1． Substantial level of equipment as a dental laboratory for university education
2． Promotion of research into major dental topics
3． Removing self-contained walls in the research organization
4． Collaboration between and mergers with basic and clinical dental researchers
5． High-level interdisciplinary education and research covering the fields of morphology, physiology and clinical assessment

The MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine is also distinctive in having many exclusive lecturers, even though it is common for undergraduate department lecturers to also work at graduate schools. The MDU Graduate School of Oral Medicine is endeavoring to promote research with the new system as described above.

The school raises highly sophisticated dentists who can deal with the latest dentistry, life stages and today’s dental fields, such as gene therapy, and researchers with an interdisciplinary view of the latest science.