Message from the Director

　"The cornerstone has been laid"
The Advanced Research Center for Oral and Craniofacial Sciences (ARCOCS) was created in June 2014 to vigorously push forward academic research and to open new research frontiers, with a special focus on the Dental School, the Dental Sciences branch of the Graduate School and on the Dental Hospital. The mother cell of ARCOCS was the Biodental Research Center here at our school. The Biodental Research Center was born in April 1999 with a Morphology common-use research facility branch and a Functional Biochemistry and Molecular Biology common-use research facility branch. Each branch had its own full-time assistant professors and its jointly appointed directors. Each director and assistant professor provided research support to the whole school, while pursuing their own researches. After the reform that created ARCOCS, the assistant professors from each of Biodental Research branches became exclusively dedicated to ARCOCS and a new professor was specially appointed as the head of the center in order to strengthen and to expand research activities throughout the Dental School. Also, a substantial and horizontal research structure, i.e. that encompasses the whole school, was established by creating a management committee composed by active researchers from each department of our school. Based on such a promising cornerstone, we expect that research at our school, and at its related institutions, will flourish even more. In order to see this goal accomplished, we count not only on the esteemed members already here, but also on researchers from outside our school and from abroad that will eventually be willing to join ARCOCS. We have a special hope that the collaboration of the later ones does not end in research itself, but that it goes beyond, to an edifying international exchange. If you have an inquisitive mind and a huge interest in the challenges of Science, do not hesitate in joining us!