about JSIT
Greeting from Executive President
Oct. 2022,
Yoshiro Saito, National Institute of Health Sciences
I was elected as the 6th President of the Japanese Society of Immunotoxicology from October 2022 as a successor of the former president, Prof. Kazuichi Nakamura (Kitasato University), and have been serving for next three years.
This Society is an organization of researchers in toxicology for immune functions. Twenty-eight years have passed since the start of the Society in 1994, and the 30th annual meeting will be held in 2023. Needless to say, immune is an extremely complex and sophisticated system involving many cells and molecules. In addition, there are a wide variety of substances that affect the immune system, including pharmaceuticals, foods, and environmental chemicals. The backgrounds of our members are diverse, including academia, industry, and government, and each member specializes in a wide range of areas, such as evaluation of toxic effects, analysis of toxicological mechanisms, development of new evaluation methods, and analysis of novel immune control mechanisms based on these analyses. At the annual meeting, members with these diverse backgrounds come together to present their new results and discuss them from various viewpoints with plenty of time for questions, which has often led to new discoveries for all attendees. We invite all interested researchers to attend our annual meeting.
We have exchange program with the Immunotoxicology Specialty Section, Society of Toxicology (US) for special lecture or symposium at both annual meetings. In addition, we continue to collaborate with the Japanese Society of Toxicology, holding joint symposium every other year at their annual meetings.
In the field of pharmaceuticals for example, the development of immunotoxicity evaluation methods for new modalities such as oligonucleotide drugs, gene therapy products, and cell-based therapeutics has become important. Seventeen years have passed since the finalization of ICH S8 guideline (Immunotoxicity studies for human pharmaceuticals), and it may be a good time to start discussions within the society on whether the guideline should be revised considering the latest findings. Over the next three years, we would like to further invigorate immunotoxicity researches based on the interaction of various research fields, which has been a tradition of our society, and to actively participate in and make proposals on these socially required issues. We appreciate your generous supports and attendance.