Sekisui House and MIT research collaboration

Sekisui House Japan and MIT’s Institute of Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) have announced a research collaboration to address the growing problem of an aging population, in Japan and around the world.

The research alliance aims to enable people to remain healthy and in their homes and communities as long as possible. This is achieved by recognising the special needs required and utilising advanced technologies such as enhanced sensors within housing accommodations.

IMES is establishing a program dedicated to advancing in-home wellness monitoring and Early Detection Systems (EDS). The program, which will be called “The Sekisui House at MIT”—will conduct research to produce technologies that will have a positive impact on the organisations, ecosystems, and global societies struggling to care for the expanding needs of the aging. It will be housed in a multi-purpose lab facility which will be outfitted with embedded sensors designed to sense low profile, ambient signals, gold standard diagnostics, and high precision research grade sensors for establishing diagnostic targets and base truth.

"The Sekisui House at MIT" will establish a multi-year and sustained collaboration around specific themes and needs, answer key questions—via targeted projects designed to collect clinically relevant evidence—and generate significant technology innovations. The program will be staffed and operated by clinicians, researchers, and technical instructors, while fostering educational and global exchange between disparate communities, all while highlighting efforts in medical and observational research.

The broader MIT community will be engaged with annual workshops and calls for proposals, as well as nominations for faculty and students to join programs surrounding specific themes. 

“A surging dilemma in Japan, as well as globally, is how to keep a growing population of seniors healthy and safely at-home,” says Dr. Elazer Edelman, director of IMES. Edelman is also the Edward J. Poitras Professor in Medical Engineering and Science at MIT, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a coronary care unit cardiologist at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. “We look forward to embarking on this research collaboration with Sekisui House in order to investigate advanced wellness monitoring technologies addressing this important problem. And we think that this exciting program will enhance the education, research and innovation mission at MIT and beyond.”

“Sekisui House is thrilled to establish this long-term collaborative research with MIT and jointly creating a new hub for collaborations and innovations within IMES to address a significant social challenge” says Mr. Yoshihiro Nakai, the President and Representative Director of Sekisui House, Ltd. “This collaboration with MIT will be a great step forward to realising the concept of “health nurturing home”, exploring new values for houses that can address real social challenges that countries and communities around the world are going to face in this coming era of the 100-year life.”

Sekisui House at MIT is led by Dr. Edelman.

For further information, view the release.