Faculty Exchange Strengthens Partnership between TU Braunschweig and Hamamatsu University School of Medicine

Prof. Dr. Satoru Yamagishi and Dr. Yuki Wakayama from Hamamatsu University School of Medicine (HUSM) visited the Zoological Institute at TU Braunschweig from 16 to 20 February 2026 to actively integrate their neuroimaging expertise into the hands-on teaching module coordinated by AG Köster. Their visit was funded through Erasmus+ KA171 teaching staff mobility support.

Since the establishment of the partnership between TU Braunschweig and HUSM in 2024 via a Memorandum of Understanding, a student exchange program, supervised by Dr. Kazuhiko Namikawa (AG Köster, Zoological Institute) and Prof. Yamagishi (Optical Neuroanatomy, HUSM), has enabled several bachelor’s and master’s students to undertake internships, or thesis research. These experiences focus primarily on neuropathology and optical imaging and have been supported by Erasmus+ KA171 together with the institutional funding from HUSM.

Hamamatsu, located on Japan’s Pacific coast, is well-known for its strong local industries, including musical instruments, especially piano, motorcycles, and photonics technologies. In 2024, HUSM established the Institute of Photonics Medicine (ipMed) in collaboration with regional photonics partners to advance research on psychiatric and neurological disorders and develop non-invasive diagnostic and therapeutic approaches.

Prof. Yamagishi’s laboratory at ipMed focuses on spinal cord injury regeneration using advanced tissue-clearing and 3D imaging technologies, which has been attracting growing interest from TU Braunschweig students to study in his lab. On the other hand, the Zoological Institute provides HUSM medical students with hands-on training in zebrafish neurological disease modeling, which is not currently available at HUSM. The recent visit by HUSM faculty further reinforced this collaboration, and will support continued exchanges between the two institutions.