On Tuesday, August 19th, 2025, 12 students from Kinran Senri Junior and Senior High School came to Nakanoshima Qross for a tour and exchange event!

During the latter half of the summer vacation, second-year junior high school students through second-year high school students came to NQ for a one-day course, with a tour in the morning and practical training in the afternoon.
The morning began with an explanation of NQ's objectives, overview, and establishment history at the Qrossover Lounge Yume, followed by a tour of the Kyoto University iPS Cell Research Foundation's cell processing facility, "Yanai my iPS Factory," Hitachi Plant Services, and the Kansai Branch of the Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA).

During the lunch break, participants were given a free tour of the NQ Pavilion and had the opportunity to test drive a Honda UNI-ONE. In the afternoon, participants attended a lecture by Four See and a tour of AS ONE's lab, followed by a practical session on preparing simulated culture medium. Finally, a roundtable discussion was held with researchers from the Kyoto University iPS Cell Research Foundation and Four See.
We hope that everyone was interested in learning not only about regenerative medicine, but also about the process of how pharmaceuticals are brought to market. We would like to introduce some of the comments we received. Thank you all.

• After hearing about iPS cells and seeing the actual cells and the machines that make them, I became very interested. When I thought about how organs can be made from those cells, I became curious about how it works and it got me really excited! I decided to research that mechanism myself.
• Hitachi Plant Services showed us a lot of interesting experimental equipment. The experimental environment has improved, and I think it's becoming possible to conduct more accurate experiments.
• I also remember being reminded of the many microphones placed in the PMDA conference room, which once again brought home to me the importance of medicines affecting the lives of many people.
• Learning that there are many ways to be involved in medicine broadened my perspective and gave me the opportunity to think about how I would like to be involved in medicine. Also, as someone who normally only deals with problems that have answers, I became very interested in research that seeks to find answers to things that do not have answers.
• What interested me the most was cultured meat. If cultured meat becomes available in the market, it will likely provide a stable source of food, and if it can be automated, it could solve problems such as a lack of successors, so I really hope that research will continue.
• The explanations from each company were thorough and they taught me everything in detail in a short amount of time, so it was easy to understand even the parts that I only had vague knowledge of. However, when I hear about iPS cells and regenerative medicine, it still feels like something that is far away, and I think that in order to make it more familiar to everyone, I need to see it with my own eyes and hear about it for myself, so I would like my friends to know about the facility.
• I'm sorry to interrupt as a student, but there was an exhibit and explanation about Professor Sawa, and I wanted to know more about how he opened NQ, what he's currently doing, and the heart muscle sheet that was featured prominently at the Expo. If I have another opportunity to visit like this, I would definitely like to hear Professor Sawa's explanation. Once again, thank you very much for taking the time out of your busy schedule. It was precisely because this was a place aimed at co-creation that I was able to learn so much in just half a day, and it was a good opportunity to think about my own future.
• In the final roundtable discussion, I learned how researchers approach their research. I wasn't entirely clear on how to approach the results, so I was very happy to be able to see that process clearly.