7th President’s Message (Tetsuya Kamataki)

Current President’s Message

Prof. Tetsuya Kamataki, Ph.D.
Graduate School of Pharmaceutical Sciences,
Hokkaido University

As I assumed the chairmanship from January of 2002, I would like to say a few words of greetings to all of our members.

Naturally, our society consists of each of you, members. The chairman is accordingly required to return the membership fees in a form most beneficial to each member while consulting with directors, and I believe that it is my mission.

The Japanese Society for the Study of Xenobiotics was established by many foresighted scholars. I do not think that there exists any organization throughout the world like the Japanese Society for the Study of Xenobiotics in terms of its size and activities. Starting from pharmacokinetic workshops, a large number of projects such as forums, which can be said to be the highlight of the annual meetings of the Society of Xenobiotics, have been realized by our Society, and provide useful knowledge to our members. In this respect, I do not think that other societies can match us.

This is the age when great innovations and changes are taking place. I think that fine tuning which anticipates the future is required so that this Society founded by our foresighted founders may not become obsolete. For example, new trends represented by pharmacogenomics and new waves seen in mergers of huge corporations in the US and Europe, which could not be anticipated in the past, have taken place and are taking place. Probably, the pharmaceutical companies in Japan cannot remain as exceptions to these events. We would like to predict by drawing our resources what these trends and waves will bring about in the future and what will be required of us in the future.

I was a vice chairman of general affairs when Dr. Watanabe, former chairman, was the chairman of general affairs, and experienced many events as a vice chairman to Dr. Watanabe. My first duty in these 2 years is to firmly establish the directions developed by Dr. Watanabe, former chairman. For that, I would like to strengthen the management of the secretariat for membership services, to establish a management committee as an advisory organ to chairman, to promote specific activities of each committee, etc. In addition, I would to make efforts to invite international societies to hold their meetings in Japan and to cooperate with the ISSX in order to grasp and understand the international

activities have to be for the sake of individual members of our Society. On the other hand, unless each member participates in the activities of our Society and supports them, they may become self-complacency of a chairman. Therefore, I would like to ask all the members to cooperate with, and assists, me in my efforts.

Tetsuya Kamataki