Welcome Message

It is a big honor for me to host the 71st Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Virology. This is the first time in 16 years that a clinical researcher has been in charge of the meeting, since the 56th event in 2008, when it was hosted by Dr. Tsuneo Morishima of the Department of Pediatrics at Okayama University, and the first time in 18 years that the event was hosted in Nagoya since the 54th 2006, when it was hosted by my mentor, Dr. Yukihiro Nishiyama.

In “50 Years of the Japanese Society of Virology: A Personal Note'' written by Dr. Yorio Hinuma, there is a section at the beginning where he looks back on the past presidents of the Society. Most of them are basic medical researchers and some of them are from other fields such as veterinary medicine, agriculture, physical science, and finally clinical medicine. In short, this society has been aiming to develop virology as an academic discipline from a broader perspective, including not only medicine but also other fields. As clinical medicine is listed at the end, there have been only three presidents in the field of clinical medicine up to the 50th, Dr. Masao Kaji at the 28th, Dr. Toru Nakao at the 32nd, and Dr. Hitoshi Kamiya at the 48th. In the 70-year history, there have been only four great clinical doctors, including Dr. Morishima, and I am deeply grateful, and determined to do my best as the 5th.

When planning this year's meeting, we set the theme of ''Sharing Curiosity: Making virology more exciting through the fusion of basic and clinical sciences''. As a pediatrician, I have been involved in virology research based on clinical research, but there have been two periods in my career when I have focused on basic research. Through that experience, I realized that basic medical scientists and clinicians were aiming in different directions. even in the field of virology. However, our strong ambition to use basic and clinical research to clarify phenomena that we have questioned from our respective perspectives remains unchanged. Furthermore, I experienced that sharing each research purpose (curiosity) and deepening discussions can lead to higher quality research. At this meeting, we have created a program that allows basic virologists and clinicians to share their curiosities, and we hope that collaboration between the two will lead to more impactful research results in the future.

From the clinical medicine side, there is one more thing that I would like to share with the basic virology researchers. While the initial clinical training system and specialist system are being developed and the initial goal of steadily training clinicians at a certain level is being achieved, I feel a great sense of crisis from the perspective of training physician scientists with a research mindset. Although the number of patients with viral infections is very large, there are many diseases that recover on their own, making them difficult to target for research like cancer or brain diseases, and I think this is a big handicap in terms of training physicists and scientists. On the other hand, the recent experience of the new coronavirus infection (COVID-19) pandemic has reminded us of the basics of viruses and the importance of clinical research. In order to prepare for future emerging infectious diseases, we believe it is extremely important to constantly train physician scientists who are well-versed in virology.

Looking back on my career, I went through a period where I mainly focused on pediatric clinical work. First during graduate school, then while researching on herpes simplex virus, which I experienced while studying abroad at the US FDA for two and a half years starting in 1993, and then working under Dr. Yukihiro Nishiyama from 1999. As an assistant professor, I had the opportunity to conduct research with young researchers from agriculture and science backgrounds. At first glance, going back and forth between clinical and basic research may seem like a detour, but it is a good opportunity for us clinicians to learn about basic virology and research methods that we lack, and that experience will help us return to clinical work. I am confident that this will be useful in resolving issues that arise through patients.

We hope that this conference will serve as an opportunity for the entire Society of Virology to develop career paths for young researchers to develop physicists who are well-versed in virology.