Sendai (仙台) is the capital city of Miyagi Prefecture, Japan, the largest city in the Tohoku region, and the second largest city north of Tokyo.
The city has a population of 1,063,103 and is sometimes called an “Academic City” because it has many universities relative to its population.
It takes only 90 minutes to get to Sendai on the bullet train from Tokyo and it’s one of the most popular tourist sites.
Anna Cattaneo
Exchange Student
University of Milan, Italy
I have always wanted to come to Japan since I watched Ghibili movies 10 years ago. I became interested in Japanese culture and last year, and I had a chance to meet Professor Jin Inokuchi at my university. He gave us a lecture and I found I could get a chance to study at his university, Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University as our universities have an alliance. I was lucky enough to get a position to come here. My research topic is diabetes, in particular our project is focused on the relationship between inflammation and adipose tissues, and its role in insulin resistance and thus diabetes. It's a very challenging but fascinating project and I'm glad that I can work in this field with Prof. Inokuchi, who is one of the world’s leading researchers on diabetes. My major is biotechnological molecular medicine, so I would like to do research as much as possible and get more idea.
Sendai is a very beautiful and a compact city, where I can get almost everything. The university is beautiful and the buildings, lab, and instruments are very new and functional. My lab mates always help us with a lot of things because I don’t speak Japanese. It’s going to be a 1-year-program so I would like to broaden my knowledge and see a lot of places in Japan.
Qinglei Hang
Doctor course student of Division of Regulatory Glycobiology
from Nantong University, China
I came to this university to study glycobiology because Japan plays a leading role in this field all over the world and Professor Jianguo Gu is a very famous researcher of it. When Prof. Gu came to Nantong university to give us a lecture, which attracted me a lot, and I thought it would be a great opportunity if I could study with him. Now I’m very satisfied with the research environment here and being able to communicate with the world-class researchers. Especially, the members of my lab are very kind who always help me in both research and life. My research topic is about the roles of the N-glycosylations of integrins in tumorigenesis. I have already focused on this research for 3 years and found some interesting phenomena, and I would like to keep on this research here because I believe our research may indicate a possibility that the remodeling of the some N-glycans on integrin can serve as a novel approach to tumor treatment.
In terms of life, the city of Sendai is comfortable to live, which is very quiet and clean, compared to Tokyo and Osaka. In addition, the food is very delicious here, especially the sushi, and the people in Sendai are very kind to me. I am enjoying and looking forward my life in Japan.