About Us

At the OIE Annual General Session in May 2014, an OIE Collaborating Centre consortium for Food Safety comprising the OIE Collaborating Centre for Food Safety, Food Safety Research Center at the University of Tokyo, and adding the Veterinary Public Health Centre (VPHC; later changed to the National Centre for Food Science) in Singapore and the Division of Health and Environmental Sciences (DHES) of Department of Veterinary Medicine, School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM), Rakuno Gakuen University (RGU).

In April 2021, under the process of restructuration of the SVM, RGU, in order to centralize the domestic and international extension activities and to facilitate and expand practical education through inter-disciplinary collaborations in serving societies, the Preventive Veterinary Medicine Extension-Network (PVM-E-Net), in which DHES plays core role, was established. At the same time, the OIE Collaborating Centre consortium for Food Safety at RGU was expanded from the DHES (Division of Preventive Veterinary Medicine: DPVM from April 2021) to the SVM.

In June 2022, the OIE changed the acronym to WOAH to match with the full name, the World Organisation for Animal Health.The SVM is now a part of the WOAH Collaborating Centre consortium for Food Safety.

  • To provide services to the WOAH, in particular within the region, in the designated specialty, in support of the implementation of WOAH policies and, where required, seek for collaboration with WOAH Reference Laboratories;
  • To propose or develop methods and procedures that facilitate harmonisation of international standards and guidelines applicable to the designated specialty;
  • To carry out and/or coordinate scientific and technical studies in collaboration with other centres, laboratories or organisations;
  • To collect, process, analyse, publish and disseminate data and information relevant to the designated specialty;
  • To provide, within the designated specialty, scientific and technical training to personnel from WOAH Member Countries;
  • To organise and participate in scientific meetings and other activities on behalf of the WOAH;
  • To identify and maintain existing expertise, in particular within its region;
  • To establish and maintain a network with other WOAH Collaborating Centres designated for the same specialty, and should the need arise, with Collaborating Centres in other disciplines;
  • To place expert consultants at the disposal of the WOAH.

PVM-E-Net was established in April 2021, re-recognizing the importance of extension service based on the Spirit of Establishment of RGU (three loves: love to God, people, and soil; and healthy soil makes healthy people) in realizing vital education/capacity building, which played a key role in development of dairy industry in Hokkaido Island since the establishment of RGU in 1933. By the enhancement of collaborations between specialties, PVM-E-Net continues to create and disseminate extension activities which match with the always changing needs from societies, and in such environment, undergraduate and postgraduate students study the approaches towards health and welfare of humans, animals and environment.

PVM-E-Net aims to provide flexible and inter-disciplinary extension activities not only on animal production medicine, animal health, and public health, but also on companion animal medicine and wildlife medicine. The expertise, capacity, and domestic and international networks developed through such activities maintain in the international extension capability as the WOAH Collaborating Centre consortium to improve animal production food safety in WOAH Member Countries.

PVM-E-Net consists of Faculty members of the SVM with DPVM as the core division, affiliated Faculty members of the College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES), and undergraduate and postgraduate students who wish to join (Figure 1).


Figure 1. The structure of Preventive Veterinary Medicine Extension-Network (PVM-E-Net)

The committee members of the PVM-E-Net are as follows. The committee members connect Faculty members between different divisions, departments and School/College depending on the social needs, in order to keep creating opportunities of new extension/collaborative researches, which contribute to the societies.

Head, PVM-E-Net:

Kohei Makita Link

Division of Preventive Veterinary Medicine

Veterinary Herd Health

Professor Shin Oikawa (Dean, SVM) Herd Health, applied animal science, applied veterinary medicine Link
Associate Professor Rika Fukumori Animal life science, animal production science, nutritional physiology Link

Animal Health

Professor Hidetoshi Higuchi (Vice Dean, SVM) Animal health Link
Lecturer Satoshi Gondaira Animal Health Link

Food Microbiology and Food Safety

Associate Professor Masaru Usui Antimicrobial resistance Link
Lecturer Akira Fukuda Antimicrobial resistance Link

Zoonosis

Professor Yasukazu Muramatsu Zoonosis Link
Associate Professor Leo Uchida Sero- and molecular epidemiology of arbovirus, molecular biology Link

Veterinary Epidemiology

Professor Kohei Makita One health epidemiology Link

Division of Biosciences

Professor Hiroki Teraoka Veterinary pharmacology Link
Lecturer Junpei Fujiki Bacterio-phage Link

Division of Pathobiology

Professor Katsuro Hagiwara Virology Link

Division of Farm Animal Clinical Sciences

Assistant Professor Keigo Kosenda Farm animal internal medicine, immunology Link

Division of Companion Animal Clinical Sciences

Associate Professor Mitsuhiro Isaka Companion animal surgery Link

Department of Veterinary Science

Professor Naoki Kooriyama Animal behavior, wildlife science Link
Professor Jun Noda Environmental health, atmosphere science, bio-aerosol Link
Professor Yuko Takahashi Veterinary ethics Link

The head of PVM-E-Net is the contact point of the WOAH Collaborating Centre for Food Safety in RGU. To fulfil the responsibility of the WOAH Collaborating Centre specified in the Terms of Reference, PVM-E-Net operates the activities related to farm to fork and environmental health and ethics, using Plan, Do, Check, and Assess (PDCA) cycle quality assurance/control (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Inter-disciplinary science in the WOAH Collaborating Centre for Food Safety in RGU

Address Zip code 069-8501
582, Bunkyodai-Midorimachi, Ebetsu, Hokkaido, Japan
TEL 011-386-4716