The (NIBB) is a research institute and post graduate university in

Okazaki City is a city located in Aichi Prefecture, Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 386,999 in 164,087 households, and a population density of 999 persons per km². The total area of the city was . Geography Okazaki is in the coastal plains ...

Aichi Prefecture is a prefecture of Japan located in the Chūbu region of Honshū. Aichi Prefecture has a population of 7,552,873 () and a geographic area of with a population density of . Aichi Prefecture borders Mie Prefecture to the west, Gifu Prefectur ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. It was founded in 1977 to promote biological research in Japan in cooperation with public and private universities, and research institutes.

Research

Though the institute's primary focus is basic biology, research there covers a wide variety of biological fields, such as

cell biology Cell biology (also cellular biology or cytology) is a branch of biology that studies the structure, function, and behavior of cells. All living organisms are made of cells. A cell is the basic unit of life that is responsible for the living and ...

developmental biology Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of Regeneration (biology), regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and di ...

neurobiology Neuroscience is the scientific study of the nervous system (the brain, spinal cord, and peripheral nervous system), its functions and disorders. It is a multidisciplinary science that combines physiology, anatomy, molecular biology, development ...

evolutionary biology Evolutionary biology is the subfield of biology that studies the evolutionary processes (natural selection, common descent, speciation) that produced the diversity of life on Earth. It is also defined as the study of the history of life fo ...

environmental biology Environmental science is an interdisciplinary academic field that integrates physics, biology, and geography (including ecology, chemistry, plant science, zoology, mineralogy, oceanography, limnology, soil science, geology and physical geograp ...

, and

theoretical biology Mathematical and theoretical biology, or biomathematics, is a branch of biology which employs theoretical analysis, mathematical models and abstractions of the living organisms to investigate the principles that govern the structure, development a ...

, The results of the research conducted at NIBB are regularly published in peer reviewed publications such as

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

, and the

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of Sci ...

Education

In addition to being a research institute, NIBB also functions as an institution of higher education. As such, it constitutes the Department of Basic Biology in the School of Life Science of the

Graduate University for Advanced Studies is one of the national universities of Japan, headquartered in Shonan Village (湘南国際村) in the town of Hayama in Kanagawa Prefecture. , as it is generally called in its abbreviated form, was established in 1988, with Dr. Saburo Nagakur ...

(SOKENDAI). The Department offers a five-year Doctoral program for university graduates and a three-year senior Doctoral course for students who have already completed a Master's course. Graduate students enrolled in other universities and institutions are also eligible to conduct research there for fixed periods of time under the supervision of NIBB professors.

International cooperation

The institute acts as a gateway between the international scientific community and researchers in Japan through various conferences, seminars, and hands-on practical courses.

International conferences

NIBB Conference

The institute has hosted the NIBB Conference every year since the opening of the Institute in 1977. The purpose of the conference is to provide active researchers with the opportunity to freely discuss current issues in various areas of biological research.

Okazaki Biology Conference

The Okazaki Biology Conference (OBC) initiated in 2003, has as its objective the establishment of interdisciplinary networks in the pursuit of answers to major questions in biology.

Academic exchange

NIBB performs academic exchange programs with the

European Molecular Biology Laboratory The European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to molecular biology research and is supported by 27 member states, two prospect states, and one associate member state. EMBL was created in 1974 and ...

(EMBL) and the

National Institutes of Natural Sciences The (NINS) is an inter-university research institute corporation consisting of five member institutes: the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan, National Astronomical Observatory (NAOJ), the National Institute for fusion Science, Japan, Nat ...

(NINS). This includes: promotion of joint research activities; invitation of faculty members and researchers to lectures, workshops, conferences, symposia, and other academic activities; exchange of graduate students for conferences and training courses; and the exchange of information and academic publications It has also joined with the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding of the

Max Planck Society The Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science (german: Max-Planck-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Wissenschaften e. V.; abbreviated MPG) is a formally independent non-governmental and non-profit association of German research institutes. ...

(MPIZ) in an initiative aimed at stimulating academic and scholarly exchange. The two will plan and promote joint research projects, collaborative symposia, training courses and student exchange programs.

National BioResource Project

The National BioResource Project (NBRP) is a national project for the systematic accumulation, storage, and supply of bioresources (experimental animals and plants, cells, DNA, and other genetic resources) widely used as tools in life science research. To The institute participates in this as a research and supply center for medaka (Oryzia latipes), a small, egg-laying freshwater

teleost Teleostei (; Greek ''teleios'' "complete" + ''osteon'' "bone"), members of which are known as teleosts ), is, by far, the largest infraclass in the class Actinopterygii, the ray-finned fishes, containing 96% of all extant species of fish. Tel ...

fish found in brooks and rice paddies, whose usefulness as a vertebrate model first developed in Japan, and whose full genome sequence became available in 2007. The medaka supplied by NIBB include standard strains, wild stocks, inbred strains, related species and spontaneous and induced mutants. NIBB is also a subcenter for NBPR's work with

Japanese morning glory ''Ipomoea nil'' is a species of ''Ipomoea'' morning glory known by several common names, including picotee morning glory, ivy morning glory, and Japanese morning glory (although it is not native to Japan). It is native to the tropical Americas, a ...

and

zebrafish The zebrafish (''Danio rerio'') is a freshwater fish belonging to the minnow family ( Cyprinidae) of the order Cypriniformes. Native to South Asia, it is a popular aquarium fish, frequently sold under the trade name zebra danio (and thus often ...

. In addition, NIBB provides databases in English containing research data on the moss

physcomitrella patens ''Physcomitrium patens'', (synonym: ''Physcomitrella patens'' ) the spreading earthmoss, is a moss (bryophyte) used as a model organism for studies on plant evolution, development, and physiology. Distribution and ecology ''Physcomitrella pat ...

daphnia ''Daphnia'' is a genus of small planktonic crustaceans, in length. ''Daphnia'' are members of the order Anomopoda, and are one of the several small aquatic crustaceans commonly called water fleas because their saltatory swimming style resembl ...

xenopus laevis The African clawed frog (''Xenopus laevis'', also known as the xenopus, African clawed toad, African claw-toed frog or the ''platanna'') is a species of African aquatic frog of the family Pipidae. Its name is derived from the three short claws ...

, plant cell

organelle In cell biology, an organelle is a specialized subunit, usually within a cell, that has a specific function. The name ''organelle'' comes from the idea that these structures are parts of cells, as organs are to the body, hence ''organelle,'' the ...

s, and

bacteria Bacteria (; singular: bacterium) are ubiquitous, mostly free-living organisms often consisting of one biological cell. They constitute a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria were among ...

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ge ...

s to researchers worldwide.

Organization

The Director-General oversees the operation of NIBB, assisted by an Advisory Committee for Programming and Management, composed of an equal number of professors within NIBB and of leading biologists outside NIBB.

NINS

In 2004, NIBB, in alliance with four other national institutes – the

National Astronomical Observatory of Japan The (NAOJ) is an astronomical research organisation comprising several facilities in Japan, as well as an observatory in Hawaii and Chile. It was established in 1988 as an amalgamation of three existing research organizations - the Tokyo Astron ...

, the

National Institute for Fusion Science National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, c ...

, the

National Institute for Physiological Sciences National may refer to: Common uses * Nation or country ** Nationality – a ''national'' is a person who is subject to a nation, regardless of whether the person has full rights as a citizen Places in the United States * National, Maryland, ce ...

, and the

Institute for Molecular Science An institute is an organisational body created for a certain purpose. They are often research organisations (research institutes) created to do research on specific topics, or can also be a professional body. In some countries, institutes can ...

– established the

National Institutes of Natural Sciences, Japan The (NINS) is an inter-university research institute corporation consisting of five member institutes: the National Astronomical Observatory (NAOJ), the National Institute for fusion Science (NIFS), the National Institute for Basic Biology (NI ...

(NINS) to promote collaboration among researchers of the five constituent institutes.
NINS outline

References

External links

NIBB Official Website
{{Authority control International research institutes Universities and colleges in Japan Science and technology in Japan Research institutes in Japan Japanese national universities Education in Aichi Prefecture Okazaki, Aichi 1977 establishments in Japan