About OHRS
The Office for Human Research Studies (OHRS), Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine was established in October 2009 to raise the standard of research ethics offering research ethics support services to researchers.
Introduction
Message from the Director
At this office, we are working to ensure all human related researches at the Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tokyo and at the University of Tokyo Hospital to be conducted in compliance with the principle of ethics of the Declaration of Helsinki and governmental regulations and guidelines. As the social context surrounding medical and health ethics is changing with increasing complexity, we have incorporated instructions, advices and opinions of people from various fields and enhanced both quality and quantity of our services.
Protecting research participants is our primary objective. And we believe that the Research Ethics Committee’s review that ensures studies to be scientifically rational and ethically appropriate can guarantee research quality, which results in protecting research participants/subjects. As the Office for Research Ethics Support, we support the committee. We also offer research ethics support services, foster research ethics specialists, and hold various seminars. We trust that high-quality research ethics support services can help maintain and improve the level of research ethics among researchers. The OHRS members and I will continue to work hard and improve the OHRS as a leader in the field domestically as well as internationally with a sincere hope that our ongoing efforts will make further contribution to the society.
ISHIHARA Soichiro
Director, The Office for Human Research Studies
Graduate School of Medicine and Faculty of Medicine, The University of Tokyo
Our Mission
Our primary objective is to protect health, rights and dignity of participants in human related researches. Without losing sight of this objective, we offer research ethics support services for researchers to be able to conduct an ethically sound research efficiently. In addition to our primary function as the Office for Human Research Studies, we plan and execute educational programs on research ethics, provide ethics education to researchers through support services, and foster research ethics specialists.
For more information
For researchers
We offer research ethics support services to researchers.
Our research ethics consultation is extended to all medical and health studies except clinical trials and includes inquiries to find out if a research requires an ethical approval, support on how to prepare an application, screening of applications, and responding to any research ethics related queries.
Our credo is to be user friendly. We work with researchers in resolving problems they face from their standpoints. Our goal through our research ethics support services is that we will be able to educate researchers while learning together.
For general consumers and patients
Human researches take place in the development of products that are commonly found in your daily life such as gaming consoles and cosmetic products.
Also clinical studies with human participants are indispensable for new medical knowledge to be eventually applied to treat patients and for medical studies that are the foundation of the development of medical science.
Research ethics must be taken into consideration not only in the fields of medical science and treatments but also in manufacturing industry.
We hope that the information we provided here could make you interested in research/medical ethics.
We believe our role should be an interface between the society and medicine from research ethics point of view.
Our Work and Cooperation with Other Departments
Primarily, we function as the Office for Human Research Studies. We also function as the secretariat of the review committee for novel treatments, which examines clinical application of unapproved medication, medical devices, and treatment materials as they are on the borderline between research and treatment, and novel medical treatment technologies that can be considered as highly challenging. Furthermore, we plan and execute educational programs on research ethics, provide ethics education for researchers through support services, educate research ethics committee members, and foster research ethics specialists.
We also respond to queries and requests from the government including the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare and collaborating research institutions and function as a coordinator between other departments and research ethics committee members. Especially, coordination among the Department of Clinical Research Governance of the University Hospital, the Clinical Research Support Center, and the Administration Office is essential. To this end, we already have established a cooperative structure that makes our seamless operation possible.
Our Staff
Yuzaburo Uetake
Ichiro Arakawa
Yumi Morita
Machi Fukata
