Hiking to Mt. Kayasan

This morning I went hiking to Mt. Kayasan (altitude of 365 m) with a student. I could not resist my desire to go out and hike. The sky was not so clear, even misty, but the peak we got was nice. Today, to get the peak, we took the Kofuji route, which starts from a seashore and contains steep and poorly maintained trail. But this rout was fun with much nature such as river crabs in a small stream, various colorful mushrooms (perhaps all poisonous), various kinds of cicadas shrilling, tiny snakes, frogs and others. Though we finished the hiking in the morning before it become too hot and humid, I enjoyed the walks and talks with him a lot. Good, refreshing day!

46th Complement Symposium in Fukuoka

My laboratory hosted the symposium during 21-22th August, using Kyushu Univ. Nishijin Plaza as a congress venue. The first day was extremely hot, and the second day was rainy in the morning. Even in such weather, more than 50 people have got together and exchanged very active discussions.
As a chairman of the symposium, I was extremely happy to have a overseas guest speaker, Dr. Claudia Kemper, who gave a special lecture on novel and important functions of properdin and CD46. Also we had a very interesting and inspiring lecture by Dr. Shunichiro Kurata on pathogen recognition by Drosophila immune system. A mini-symposium in the symposium on evolution of the complement system was also fun. In addition, regular oral presentations are all accompanied by very active discussions, making the original time table almost nothing!
Post-conference activities, so-called excursion, are also fantastic with Claudia. Only a hard luck was that access to the volcano mouth of Aso mountain was prohibited because of high level of sulfur oxide, volcanic gas.

I would like to thank all the people who supported the symposium and other activities duing the week: my lab people, all the delegates of the symposium, managers of Nishijin Plaza, secretary of Food Science course, and many others.

21st Annual Meeting of JADCI

During 3-5 August, the 21st Annual Meeting of Japanese Association for Developmental and Comparative Immunology was held in Nihon University, Fujisawa Campus, chaired by Dr. Teruyuki Nakanishi. We had 36 oral presentations of original researches, a special lecture by Dr. Nakayama on T-cell differentiation and maintenance, and six talks in a symposium on lymphocyte evolution, with about 100 attendants. As I was serving as a secretary general and treasurer, I spent busy times during the meeting to prepare executive and general meetings, but at the same time, really enjoyed the activity. I met many researchers working on quite interesting topics, having sound discussions. Also we gained a number of new members of this association, especially youths. I hope that JADCI grows further and the field of comparative immunology attracts more scientists.
I believe we are now on the right track.
Personally, I enjoyed to drink and talk with Oriol from UPENN and Drs. Jung, Hikima, and Otani, who are all young leading scientists working hard and sincerely on fish immunology.
As in the previous symposium in Gyeongsang National University, students and other stuff were devotedly working for the meeting. It was quite impressive. Thank you for those services, to all.

BBQ party

In the last Wednesday, many of my lab members got together and had a barbecue party in the campus yard. The sky was cloudy but it was comfortable evening. Ms. Tanaka, the secretary of my lab, also joined with her daughter, Himari. Himari behaved quite shy at the beginning, but she became fine in several minutes.
Next week, I will travel to Fujisawa to attend the 21th meeting of JADCI, with Dr. Somamoto and two graduate students. Undergraduates in my lab will start their preparatory study (learning) for the entrance exam for Master course. August is one of the busiest month for us; we do not have so-called summer vacation unfortunately.

A festival of Hakozaki Shrine

This festival, named Nagoshi-Matsuri, is a relatively small one compared with other two major festivals of this shrine with long and distinguished history. The term 'Nagoshi' means 'living well and safely during summer', so this festival is to celebrate and pray our good health during hot and humid season of Fukuoka.
Unfortunately, we have had heavy rain during the last a few days. So some ceremony and their accompanying activity might be canceled. Today, we finaly had a sunny hours, and the festival became bit active and shops opend along with the approach path to the shrine seem busier, gathering kids and families.

Two travels in a week.

The last weekend, I flew to Tokyo to attend a seminar on HAE (Hereditary Angioedema, caused by genetic deficiency of C1INH, a complement regulatory protein also controlling many kinds of endogenous proteases). The main purpose of mine was to introduce the Complement Symposium to the attendee, but the contents of the seminar themselves were also very interesting to me. I was invited by the sponsor, being provided with air tickets and accommodation.


Mt. Fuji seen from the plane to Tokyo

Three days later (on Wednesday), I visited Jinju city in South Korea to give a lecture in a syposium entitled “Fish Defense Mechanisms against Invading Pathogens” held in Gyeongsang National University, and just came back to Fukuoka today (4 days trip). Almost all the speaker were from Japan, but their lectures were still interesting and informative for me. Mine was on the functional diversity of carp C3 isotypes mainly in biochemical aspects. Professors Tae Sung Jung and Takashi Aoki, the organizers, and their posdocs and PhD students showed maximum efforts in the symposium and also genuine hospitality for us. Their passion and consideration were impressive. Also impressive was an encounter with Ms. Rhoda Mae Cerbo, a secretary of the symposium. She turned out to be a graduate of Univ. Philippines School of Visayas, in which she had supervisors, Drs. Jp and Lani, my friends. I was realized again what a small world is it.


In a banquet, with Rhoda

In their lab on Vet. School, PhD students behaved politely, and they all were sufficiently good in communication with us in English (and also drank a lot!). I expect that the laboratories will develop to a COE for fish immunoogy/pathology, with much effort of those stuffs.
Jinju city is a medium sized calm city, as long as I felt, having the National University. We also visited College of Marine Science of the University and found beautiful new lab on fish pathology and marine life science. I hope we can develop fruitful collaboration on fish immune system in near future.

12th ISDCI congress is coming to Fukuoka

Finally it was decided. It'll be the first congress held in Asia, in 2012 July. I'll do my best, with collaboration with Japanese and international colleagues, for successful congress here.