News and Topics

2021.09.01

Mayu Yamamoto, who graduated from the Kwansei Gakuin University Graduate School of Science and Technology in March 2021, gave a presentation at the Japan Society for Fertilization and Implantation conference in Kobe about research which she had worked on at the Hyogo College of Medicine since she was an undergraduate student, and was awarded the International Society of in Vitro Fertilization (ISIVF) Memorial Prize. Yamamoto's presentation was entitled "Understanding infertility with immune abnormalities from NKp46 expressed in shed membrane NK cells.” The research examined the relationship between infertility and cells in the uterus that are involved in the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy, and was conducted by a research team led by Professor Hiroaki Shibahara and Associate Professor Atsushi Fukui of the Hyogo College of Medicine Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

In her senior year, Yamamoto, who majored in Bioscience at the School of Science and Technology (currently the Department of Biosciences at the School of Biological and Environmental Sciences), applied to study at the Hyogo College of Medicine, with which KGU had concluded a comprehensive agreement on academic exchange that continues to this day. She was particularly interested in obstetrics and gynecology, especially reproductive medicine. Undergraduate students are required to complete their studies in one year, but she continued her research at the Hyogo College of Medicine after entering graduate school. After completing graduate school, while working at a contract manufacturing company for pharmaceuticals, she presented the research she had done up to this point to achieve this result. Regarding her win, Yamamoto said, “This honor is more than I deserve. I’m very happy, and in disbelief. This is all thanks to everyone whom I’ve worked with at Kwansei Gakuin University and the Hyogo College of Medicine, and I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude. Through this award, I hope that as many people as possible will develop an interest in the function of uterine immune cells in the establishment and maintenance of pregnancy." The Hyogo College of Medicine research team intends to publish an English version of the research paper in the future.