The Medical Research Department (MRD) was established in 1964 and merged the education sector of the hospital into Medical Research & Education Department in 1994. This department was divided to two independent departments - Medical Research Department (MRD) and Medical Education Department again during the reformation of ROC government in 2013. Currently, there are three divisions— Basic Research, Transitional Research and Clinical Research, and three Task Force Groups, namely, Technology Transfer Office, General Clinical Research Center and Center of Excellence for Cancer Research, plus affiliated committees in the MRD.

　 The variety of labs specialize in “Arteriosclerosis”, “Coronary Artery Disease” and “Vascular Medicine”, “Neurophysiology”, “Toxicology”, “Nucleic Acids”, “Stem Cell”, “Microbiology”, ”Hepatitis” and “Hepatic Cellular Carcinoma”, “Biochemical Oncology”, “Molecular Virology”, “Magnetic resonance”, “Biophysics”, “Epidemiology & Biostatistics”, “Gastrointestinal Tumor”, “Genome Research”, “Human Molecular Genetics”, “Neuropharmacology and Integrated Brain Function Research”, etc… Each lab is presided by a principle investigator (professor) or an associate research fellow (associate professor), who is usually a faculty member of the National Yang-Ming University as well as a postgraduate supervisor.

　 MRD's research facilities are diversified and well-equipped, which include “Cell Bank”, “Core Laboratories & Facilities”, “Common Instrument Facilities” and “Animal Center”.  Since 2005, experts have been recruited to handle the high caliber sophisticated instruments, professionally. The Department has also been working in recent years on the technology transfer of research outcomes and R&D expansion with fruitful results. The new Medical Technology Building, completed with BSL-2/3 laboratories and GLP clinical research wards in 2009, signifies the enhancement of our biomedicine research level, which is conducive to facilitate pre-medication clinical trials and the clinical application of cell therapy.

　In recent years, to facilitate the application and funding on clinical studies, the department built up the on-line research plan application filing, and review operational system. Currently, the department supports a serial research of stem cell therapy and regenerative medicine in the hospital. Besides, the department has established the “Integrated Brain Function Research”, to link up the related research in VGH with that in National Yang-Ming University. The Department founded Biostatistics Task Force and General Clinical Research Center to strengthen the organized capability and the collaboration between industry, the university and the hospital. To promote clinical implication of the research results, the department also maps out technology transfer and set up Institutional Review Board for the clinical trials. In the past decades, the staffs and research teams of the department have made some marvelous achievements including the completion of the genomic sequencing of the entire human chromosome No. 4 and Ganoderma Lucidum Genomic Sequence Decoding. Besides, the nationwide project neonatal screening for metabolic and rare diseases was implemented in 1984, which has significant impact for the newborns and their families. Other featured researches include the research on arteriosclerosis, the study for the improvement in stent coating, stem cell research and its applications, the study of immuno-pathogenesis, the functional MRI studies of brain in human, and so on. In the past five years, over 800 papers have been cited by SCI; the IF (Impact Factor) averaged >3.67. All the above studies have been highly repeatedly cited in professional journals and textbooks, which is not only making enormous impact to medical science but also on human health.

Our next focus will be on enhancing the cooperation between research staffs and our hospital staffs in the inter-center basis to impact the transitional medicine to practical use. Accordingly, we should play our core roles to continuously work with our clinicians, through the effective research and study, to solve the clinical issues and improve the patients’ health.