The Japanese government decided a plan to build a hospital in Kobe City specializing in ophthalmology, the first hospital in the world using technologies of induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells, the Nobel Prize winning invention. The plan is part of the administration’s strategic special economic zone in Kansai region, the nation’s second largest economic center.

The hospital tentatively called Kobe Eye Center will be given an exceptional approval to open hospitalization facilities with 30 beds in the designated Port Island, the reclaimed land near Kobe Port, where it is usually regulated to increase the number of beds. The advanced medical treatments such as regeneration of human retinas by implanting iPS cells will be conducted at the hospital. Construction will start next year and opening is expected in 2017. (2014/09/06)