Tokyo, 18th October, 2019: Team of Medical Undergraduate students from Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore, India comprising of Reshma Romanas and Aayushi Agrahari won the prestigious International Quiz on Stem Cells & Regenerative Medicine, the Fujio Cup Quiz (FCQ), a part of 2019 NCRM NICHE (Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM)'s Nichi-In Conclave in Healthcare Every year) held at the Shibaura Institute of Technology, Tokyo, Japan between 14-16th October, 2019.

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Reshma Romanas and Aayushi Agrahari (Kasturba Medical College,Mangalore, India), being awarded the Fujio Cup by Dr Masahiro Katoh (Chairman, Edogawa Hospital; 3rd from Rt.) as (from L>R) Mr Ryuzaburo Katoh & Dr Shojiro Katoh (Edogawa Hosp.,), Prof Masaru Iwasaki (Yamanashi Univ.,) & Prof. Dr. Jürgen Hescheler (Univ. of Cologne) congratulate them.

The event had scholars participating from different countries with final round contestants from India, Indonesia & Malaysia. The FCQ, an active knowledge gaining (AKG) event which was started in 2006 in India became a global event since 2017 when NCRM NICHE started being conducted in Japan. The entire event has evolved into an Open Innovation Platform where scholars get to connect with researchers working in a myriad of inter-disciplinary fields and also with institutes, funding organizations and the various other stake-holders in regenerative medicine. The Inter-disciplinary conclave (IDC), another component of the event witnessed presentations from experts working on cutting edge Regenerative Medicine applications and also scholars of physics and chemistry presenting their work on healthcare applications. The Best paper awards were won by Fajar Shodiq Permata from Universitas Brawijaya, Indonesia, Aruto Hori, from Chiba University, Japan & Pan Qi from The University of Tokyo, Japan.

The awards ceremony videocast the Acceptance speech of 2019 Edogawa NICHE Prize recipient, Dr. Steven A. Rosenberg, Chief, Surgery Branch, National Cancer Institute (NCI), MD, USA whose pioneering and ground-breaking work of developing effective adoptive immunotherapies and genetically modified T cells for treating cancer over three decades cancer made the young scholars of the event get inspired to carry out research on an inter-disciplinary perspective as the world's greatest inventions & discoveries have happened only when an out-of-the box approach and having an open mind for accepting cross-disciplinary ideas came together. The Edogawa NICHE Hall of fame was declared open through a teleconferencing earlier by Prof Gary Levy, Founding director of Multi Organ Transplant Program, University of Toronto.

The NCRM NICHE is conducted under a licensing arrangement between NCRM, India and GN Corporation Japan as the later organizes it in Tokyo with support from a consortium comprising of M/s JBM Inc., Japan, which has set up a novel biomaterial facility in Tokyo sponsored the Just Beyond Medicine Oration 2019, in which Prof. Dr. Jurgen Hescheler Head, Neurophysiology, University of Cologne, Germany narrated the work of his team on Stem cells for regenerative medicine and anti-aging and his team pioneered cell culture techniques for embryonic stem cells including the widely used hanging drop method. M/s Edogawa Evolutionary Laboratory of Science (www.EELS.tokyo) act as knowledge partners in the consortium taking forward the innovations of NCRM to translational and clinical phase in Japan. Prof. Masaru Iwasaki, Vice President, University of Yamanashi, Dr Masahiro Katoh, Chairman, Dr Shojiro Katoh, President, Edogawa Hospital & Mr. Ruzaburo Katoh, General Manager, Jinsei-sha social welfare trust, graced the awards ceremony.

Delegates of NCRM NICHE 2019 had a Yukata (Japanese traditional summer kimono) wearing session and group picture on day 3 (16th Oct., 2019) before concluding session.