Our national statistics report that approximately one million infants are born in Japan every year. Amidst significant improvements in the quality of Japanese medical care, especially in labor and delivery services, three-hundred thousand infants out of a million are diagnosed with NRFS (non-reassuring fetal status). This leads to consequences which include complications of preterm delivery (ischemic encephalopathy or necrotizing enterocolitis) or neonatal death. Further figures show that three out of ten surviving infants will eventually develop health related problems. In addition, the incidence rate of cerebral palsy, whose effects range from mild to severe, has not improved for the past 50 years but continues to increase along with the number of premature births. The introduction of ultrasound technology to monitor labor and delivery has dramatically improved obstetrical practice, but this does not guarantee absolute safety during labor.

  In order to improve this situation, medical science has advanced significantly, and great amounts of information on genetics and differentiation have been accumulated. Using skills in information theory, bioinformatic engineering and molecular biology, our laboratory determines the condition of fetuses, and aims to find a way to cure or to prevent resulting pathologies, such as periventricular leukomalacia from brain hemorrhage and cardiac arrest caused by fetal dysfunction.

  Our main research themes are: a) further development of Fetal Electrocardiography (Fetal ECG), a novel measurement approach to determine the condition of fetuses, and its application in the clinics, b) genetic analysis of fetal dysfunction, and c) to cure / prevent cerebral disorders and sudden fetal cardiac arrest (application of molecular biology to fetal medicine).