[Research on the pulmonary circulation--from physiology to molecular biology]

After more than 30 years of research and clinical work, I would like to review the past and offer advice to young doctors. I began my research career with physiological studies of the pulmonary microcirculation. Then, based on concepts derived from those studies, I extended my work by doing clinical studies of pulmonary vascular diseases. My young coworkers are now breeding rats to be used as models of pulmonary hypertension. We are doing physiological and pathological studies of these animals, and we have taken on the challenge of treating them with the techniques of molecular biology. The extension of my research over these past 30 short years has been extremely rapid and comprehensive. Reflecting on the path of my research, I offer the following lessons. The directions in which my work has taken me have been unpredictable. New knowledge and techniques have, of course, been important, but so has my contact and collaboration with coworkers and senior colleagues, both in Japan and abroad. The pace of scientific research is increasing. I advise you to be flexible and accepting of new knowledge, and not to adhere to the traditional limits on the scope of clinical, physiological, and pathological research.