Socio-Life Science and the COVID-19 Outbreak

This open access book presents the first step towards building socio-life science, a field of science investigating humans in such a way that both social and life-scientific factors are integrated. Because humans are both living and social creatures, a human action can never be understood fully without knowing both the biological traits of a person and the social scientific environments in which he exists. With this consideration, the editors of this book have initiated a research project promoting a deeper and more integrated understanding of human behavior and human health. 

This book aims to show what can, and could be, achieved through our interdisciplinary project. One important product is the newly formed three-party collaboration between Pasteur Institut, Kyoto University, and the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry. Covering many different fields, including medicine, epidemiology, anthropology, economics, sociology, demography, geography, and policy,researchers in these institutes, and many others, present their studies on the COVID-19 pandemic. Although based on different methodologies, the studies show the importance of behavioral change and governmental policy in the fight against a huge pandemic. The book explains the unique genome cohort–panel data that the project builds to study social and life scientific aspects of humans.

Makoto Yano is Chairman of the Research Institute of Economy, Trade and Industry (RIETI); he is also a specially appointed professor at Kyoto University and Sofia University. He is an internationally known researcher who has made a number of substantial contributions in international trade, and especially on economic dynamics. In a series of recent research, Yano proposes market quality theory, addressing various problems in modern economies, including the financial market crisis since 2008 and the recent nuclear accidents in Japan, from the point of view of market quality. Concerning quality of competition, quality of information, and quality of products, market quality is defined as an index jointly determined by the efficiency of an allocation and the fairness of the prices that are achieved in a market. An influence of his theory can be seen in Krishnendu Dastidar’s book, Oligopoly, Auctions and Market Quality (2017), included in the same Springer book series as the present volume. Yano received a BA in economics from the University of Tokyo in 1971 and a PhD in economics from the University of Rochester in 1981.

 

Professor Fumihiko Matsuda obtained his PhD from Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine in 1990 under Professor Tasuku Honjo and continued his research with him until 1998. Throughout this period, his work is the organization of the human immunoglobulin heavy-chain variable-region (VH) gene locus. In 1998, he joined Centre National de Genotypage (CNG) in Evry, France, as the head of gene identification. During his stay at CNG for ten years, he played a significant role in numerous comprehensive genetic analyses of multigenetic disorders. Since holding a joint appointment as a Professor of the Center for Genomic Medicine at Kyoto University in 2003, he focused on the trans-ethnic genetic studies of human diseases. Since 2012, he has led an international collaboration with McGill University in genomics and contributed to establishing an International Joint Degree Programme in Genomic Medicine between Kyoto and McGill. The programme was initiated in April 2018. Since 2016, he is currently the scientific coordinator of Pasteur-Kyoto International Research Unit for Vaccinomics. Also, he has served as the research director of RADDAR-J, a nationwide rare disease platform programme in Japan supported by AMED since 2017.

Professor Matsuda has consistently devoted himself to researching human genetics and genomics by integrated omics analysis of human disorders through various positions he has engaged. He has experience working in France for ten years with international collaborators. He is also promoting international collaborations with Asian countries, including China, Korea, and Thailand, as well as with France, Canada, and the UK.

Professor Matsuda is Chevalier de l’Ordre National du Mérite.

 

Anavaj Sakuntabhai, MD, DPhil is amedical doctor from Thailand. After his PhD on human molecular genetics at the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics, University of Oxford in 2000, he joined the Institut Pasteur to develop a programme on genetics of infectious diseases. He created the research unit of Functional Genetics of Infectious Diseases at Institut Pasteur in 2010 focusing on genetic susceptibility to dengue infection. He received Prix Dusquense in 2016 and i-Lab Grand Prix award from the French national challenge of innovation organized by the French Ministry of research in 2020 for development of new pentavalent dengue and Zika T cell vaccine. He coordinated European FP7 project on Dengue Framework for Resisting Epidemics in Europe (DENFREE). He was involved in investigating two recent global outbreaks of infectious diseases, Ebola and Zika. Currently, he is a coordinator of the Pasteur International Center for Research on Emerging Infectious Diseases (PICREID)—supported by the NIH. The project is implemented in west and central Africa and southeast Asia, linking large observational multicentre cohort studies with basic scientific research and leading to increased preparedness for new epidemic threats in the region. Recently, he was appointed as the director of Institut Pasteur Japan office to establish a transdisciplinary network on emerging infectious diseases between Japan, France, and countries in the Indo-Pacific region.

 

Shigeru Hirota is a professor at Kyoto Sangyo University and a faculty fellow of RIETI. Directly after graduating with a BA from the University of Tokyo in 1992, he joined the Cabinet Office and held positions in charge of analyzing the Japanese economy, regional economies, and compiling national and regional statistics. He was the Director of the Department of National Accounts at the Cabinet Office before joining to Kyoto Sangyo University in April 2020. He also taught at Kyoto University as a specially appointed professor and at National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies as an associate professor. In 1999, Hirota received an MA in economics from Rutgers University. His primary research interests are health economics and regional economics.