ＭＲＳ-J News Vol.14 No.1  February 2002

To the Overseas Members of MRS-J

■The Aim of Biomaterials Research
Prof.Dr.Yoshito IKADA, Suzuka University of Medical Science
　As the term “biomaterial” is not yet familiar even in the materials research society, the outline of biomaterial was delineated, focusing on the number of patients receiving organ replacement therapies with artificial organs and organ transplantation. The costs associated with the provision of such therapies were also described. A striking fact is that the first year and follow-up worldwide costs of organ prosthesis exceed $300 billion US dollars per year and represent between 7 and 8% of total worldwide health care spending. The therapies enabled by pharmaceutical products represent 12% of total health care costs. The most urgent socioeconomic importance in advanced countries is to reduce the rapidly increasing health care spending. Therefore, the strongly required task to biomaterials researchers is to do best to reduce the cost of artificial organs and related biomaterials. It seems likely that development of new therapeutic technologies will contribute to the reduction of total health care spending. Tissue engineering will be one of the new technologies, similar to endoscopic therapies.

■Frontier Research and Development Center, Tokyo Denki University
Assistant Professor Dr. Shahariar AHMED, Frontier Research and Development Center, Tokyo Denki University
　Recently advanced technologies for medical science have displayed a remarkable development, interacting deeply with the fields of electronics, biotechnology, and new materials. This center opened in 1998 to promote collaboration research into biomaterial and biosystem of welfare engineering based on the frontier concept of the Japanese Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. This center is conducting its activities on Artificial organs & ME system research, Biomaterial research and Human&Information research.
Main research fields:
･Development of cardiopulmonary devices for the quality of life.
･Development of good biocompatible materials for artificial organs.
･Research and development of different types of medical and welfare related equipment.

■Report of 13th MRS-J Academic Symposium
Vice President of MRS-J, Prof. Hiroshi YAMAMOTO, Nihon University
　The symposium with 10 concurrent sessions was held on 20 and 21 Dec. 2001 at KSP, Kanagawa. Papers of 383 were presented. Very active discussions and exchange of informations were done at each session. Especially young researchers showed agressive presentations. Prize winners of MRS-J Award for Young Scientists were listed up. The following sessions were opened and briefly summarized by each chairperson.
･Session A “Advanced Materials Processing on the Basis of Concerted Amplification(II)”; Dr. Yoshio Sakka(NIMS); Invited(4), Oral(28), Poster(13)
･Session B “Self-Organization Phenomena and Novel Functions”; Prof. Takatoshi Kinoshita(Nagoya Inst. Technol.); Invited(2), Oral(20), Poster(24)
･Session C “Clusters and Cluster-Assemblies toward New Functional Materials”; Prof. Kenji Sumiyama(Nagoya Inst. Technol.); Invited(4), Oral(26), Poster(19)
･Session D “Biopolymer Gels; Science and Applications”; Prof. Masayuki Tokita(Mie Univ.); Invited(2), Oral(10), Poster(22)
･Session E “Dynamic Microstructural Evolution in System of Grains”; Prof. Fumihiro Wakai(Tokyo Inst. Technol.); Invited(3), Oral(21), Poster(5)
･Session F “Domain Structure Related Properties and Materials”; Prof. Satoshi Wada(Tokyo Inst. Technol.); Invited(5), Oral(8), Poster(15)
･Session G “Chromogenic Materials”; Prof. Masao Yamana(Tokyo Denki Univ.); Invited(1), Oral(12), Poster(8)
･Session H “Progress in New Plant Materials”; Prof. Masahisa Otsuka(Shibaura Inst. Technol.); Invited(2), Oral(14), Poster(23)
･Session I “Materials for Living-Environment, Medicine and Welfare―”; Prof. Kohji Ioku(Yamaguchi Univ.); Invited(0), Oral(22), Poster(9)
･Session J “Materials Frontier Poster sessions”; Prof. Tatsuo Noma(Tokyo Univ. Agricultutre and Technol.); Poster(59)

■Dr. Kishi Was Elected of the New President, MRS-J
　On 19th December 2001, the presidents chair for the next one year, 2001-2002, was handed over by Professor Masahiro Yoshimura to Dr. Teruo Kishi, Director of the NIMS, who will serve the Materials Research Society of Japan.

■MRS Symposium
･April 1-5, 2002, MRS Spring Meeting, San Francisco, CA, USA, Materials Research Society, 506 Keystone Dr., Warrendale, PA 15086-7573, USA; www.mrs.org.
･June 10-14, 2002, 8th Intl. Conf. On Electronic Materials, Xian, China, J. Cheng; E-mail cmrssec＠public.bta.net.cn; www.c-mrs.org.cn/icem2002/.