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Alzheimer disease research in Japan: public funding

Nature Medicine volume 12, pages 778–779 (2006)Cite this article

Because of the longevity of the Japanese people, age-associated dementia is threatening Japan. Alzheimer disease has become the most common cause of dementia in the elderly in Japan, comprising more than 50% of dementia cases. The total number of individuals with Alzheimer disease is estimated to be about 2 million out of a population of 120 million; the disease affects more than 1 out of 20 Japanese citizens age 65 or older. The medical costs for Alzheimer disease treatment are estimated to be more than 50 billion yen per year, and the total cost for care of demented individuals exceeds 2 trillion yen per year. Thus, there is a compelling need for treatment and prevention of Alzheimer disease, and this need is driving funding for Alzheimer disease research in Japan.

The major funding bodies for Alzheimer research in Japan are largely governmental. For example, the Ministry of Education, Science, Sports and Technology (MEXT) funds basic research (including mechanisms of disease), and the Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare (MHLW) chiefly deals with health- or disease-related problems (especially the clinical or therapeutic aspects); their affiliated foundations, such as the Japan Society for Promotion of Sciences (JSPS), also provide funding. Each Ministry has its own advisory board of senior scientists to evaluate the research funding plans proposed by government officers. For example, MHLW's advisory board, the Health Science Council, discusses problems related to every aspect of human health. MEXT's advisory board, the Life Science Committee in the Science and Technology Council, discusses problems related to academic and technological progress in the life sciences, evaluates funding plans that are proposed within MEXT and performs interim reviews of specific research grant programs. Through these advisory boards, academic researchers are often quite involved in the process of decision making for research funding.

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Figure 1: Amount of public funding for Alzheimer disease research in Japan for the past 10 years by type of funding (basic, blue; competitive, purple; special budget for genome research, ivory).

Acknowledgements

The authors thank the governmental officials in MHLW and MEXT and many academic researchers, especially H. Ito of the National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, T. Tabira of NILS and N. Nukina of RIKEN BSI, for kindly providing us with relevant information for the preparation of this commentary. The authors declare that they have links with the organizations mentioned in this article. I.K. is the chairman of the Life Science Committee in the Science and Technology Council of the MEXT, member of the Health Science Council of MHLW and head of the Life Science Section of the Science Council of Japan. This article reflects their personal opinions, and not those of the organizations.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Neuropathology and Neuroscience, Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyoku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Takeshi Iwatsubo

  2. Department of Neuropathology, Graduate School of Medicine, University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo Bunkyoku, Tokyo, 113-0033, Japan

    Yasuo Ihara

  3. National Center of Neurology and Psychiatry, 4-1-1 Ogawa-Higashimachi, Kodaira, 187-8551, Japan

    Ichiro Kanazawa

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  1. Takeshi Iwatsubo
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  2. Yasuo Ihara
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  3. Ichiro Kanazawa
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Correspondence to Ichiro Kanazawa.

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Iwatsubo, T., Ihara, Y. & Kanazawa, I. Alzheimer disease research in Japan: public funding. Nat Med 12, 778–779 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0706-778

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