Jan 1, 2008: Mr Terry Guo, 57, founder of Hon Hai Precision and the world’s 142nd richest person with a personal fortune of $5.5 billion, recently donated $454.54 million to his alma mater National Taiwan University (NTU). Though the donation itself made big news for being the single largest donation to a university medical school ever, what was even bigger was his concern for people suffering from cancer and the need for early detection. He lost his wife to breast cancer in 2005 and earlier this year his brother died of Leukemia.

Guo’s donation will be used to construct a cancer hospital, and advanced medical facilities such as a proton therapy center and other biomedical engineering projects.

Some background
In 1945, when Taiwan was returned to Mainland China after Japan—its occupier—lost the World War II, the local government took over the former Taihoku (Taipei) Imperial University and reorganized it into six faculties. One of the faculties was Faculty of Medicine. However, when Taiwan split from the Communist China in 1945, the former Japanese teaching system was replaced with the system set by the local government. To raise the standard of medical education, the one-year pre-medical course was increased to two years in 1949. Thus, the medical course, leading to the degree of Doctor of Medicine (Bachelor of Medicine before 1991), was started.

During the war, the buildings of the College of Medicine and its teaching hospital (National Taiwan University Hospital) were either completely or partly damaged by air raids. Most of the facilities were out of order. In 1951, the United States Aid Missions to China began donating funds for the rehabilitation and reconstruction. Even other agencies such as The China Medical Board of New York, The American Bureau for Medical Advancements in China, and The World Health Organization extended their assistance to the college.

With substantial improvement of the laboratory and library facilities, and with the recommendations of the American consultants, the curriculum for medical students was reorganized, and the teaching methods were changed. The number of hours for lectures was reduced, while the time allotted to laboratory exercises and bed-side teaching was increased. The so-called “Block System” and “Clerkship” were adopted in 1945. To meet the urgent needs of Taiwan, the schools of allied health sciences were established. These schools have been sharing most of the teaching staff and facilities of the college.

Present scenario
The National Taiwan University College of Medicine (NTUCM) now has seven schools. The School of Medicine that consists of 28 departments, offers a seven-year medical program; it includes two years of pre-medical courses, two years of basic medicine, two years of clinical medicine and one year of rotating internship. The School of Dentistry offers a six-year course. The courses of the School of Pharmacy, Nursing, Clinical Laboratory Sciences and Medical Biotechnology, Physical Therapy and Occupational Therapy are all of four-year duration and lead to a Bachelor’s degree.

Prof Pan-Chyr Yang, Dean, College of Medicine, National Taiwan University informs that the university has 367 full-time faculty members, including three academician member of the Academia Sinica. There are about 1,900 undergraduate students and 1,300 graduate students.

The School of Medicine has 10 graduate institutes—Anatomy and Cell Biology, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Immunology, Physiology, Pharmacology, Pathology, Toxicology, Molecular Medicine, and Clinical Medicine—which accept graduate students and confer Masters and PhD degrees. The school curriculum is arranged to provide students with necessary opportunities for acquiring knowledge of basic medical sciences, clinical medicine and psychosocial medicine.

According to Prof Yang, the NTUCM has established the Office for Medical Research and Development in 1996 in order to integrate and make efficient use of research resources among the College of Medicine, National Taiwan University Hospital and the College of Public Health. The office has come up with guidelines to share instruments and resources, to integrate basic and clinical medical researches, to support junior researchers, to supervise research activities, to encourage research publications and to administer all research related affairs. The NTUCM has established four research centers to help students.

The NTUCM has added Medical Informatics course to the core curriculum for medical students in 1994. It also has Laboratory Animal Center (LAC). Besides providing laboratory animals to the NTU and other universities, colleges, schools, and research organizations in Taiwan, the LAC provides information on rearing and breeding of animals, rears various types of laboratory animals, assists in various experiments, disease diagnosis of laboratory animals, health monitoring, microbiologic monitoring of water and feeds, environmental microbiologic monitoring and development of animal experiment techniques. It hopes to advance laboratory animal research and establish laboratory animal science data storage in the future.

The NTUCM proposes to set up “total resources service” incubation centers, to collaborate R&D centers, and industrial R&D centers. “With the participation and investments from private enterprises, we will build a first rate biomedical and biotechnology industrial cluster in Asia,” states Prof Yang.

 “The 21st century will be the age of translational medicine. Researchers and physicians will be expected to expeditiously  move basic research findings from the bench to the bedside. The NTUCM seeks to provide support for research scientists, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students and laboratory space required for studies in biotechnology. Additional shared resources will be created,” he adds.

The NTUCM will focus on disease-oriented genomic translation, with an emphasis on identifying mechanisms and genetic bases for diseases common in Taiwan including cancer and infectious diseases.