It is a great honor for us, in Kumamoto City, to host the 63rd Meeting of the Japanese Society for Inherited Metabolic Diseases in conjunction with the 18th Asian Symposium of Inherited Metabolic Diseases. The two linked conferences will be held in the Kumamoto Castle Hall from Thursday, November 24 to Saturday, November 26, 2022. This represents the third time that Kumamoto City has hosted the annual meeting of the Japanese Society for Inherited Metabolic Diseases, after the 28th and 48th event held in 1985 and 2005, when the Society was chaired by Professor Emeritus MATSUDA Ichiro and Professor Emeritus Fumio Endo, respectively. We are pleased to welcome many participants in the conference back here again. The theme of the coming meeting is “Building sustainable medical treatment systems for inherited metabolic diseases.” I hope that substantial discussions will take place to explore possible approaches to establishing sustainable medical treatment systems for inherited metabolic diseases, a type of rare disease.

In Kumamoto, which suffered from severe damage caused by a strong earthquake occurring in April 2016, recovery plans have been slowly but steadily progressing, largely thanks to support from many people. A number of affected hospitals have reopened, new convention halls have completed, and the damaged tower of Kumamoto Castle was restored. However, we had not been delighted those advancements long before COVID-19 began to spread in 2020. Due to the emerging crisis, we had to postpone the 63rd meeting to 2022 from the initial schedule set for November 2020. Over these years, many meeting plans began to avoid in-person settings and adopt the online format instead as a measure against the infection, and we have learned a lot about the benefits and limitations of the new option. I myself have learned considerably from my experience. When I served as head of the executive committee for a seminar planned by the Society, the committee decided to create an online setting to hold the seminar in place of the planned in-person setting. The resulting webinar was successful thanks to the kind cooperation of lecturers. I recognized the advantage of the online meeting that enables a remote participation option, while noticing difficulties with online personal communication, which did not match the appropriate casualness achieved by face-to-face exchanges. Preparations for the planned meeting are underway primarily to provide an in-person environment that can allow many casual exchanges and encounters among participants from inside and outside of Japan, and that can build long relationships. At the same time, we are preparing a range of measures to be able to respond to various situations.

Kumamoto has plenty of unique things that interest many visitors. Major examples are Kumamoto Castle, which is offering a special site tour that contains an access to the inside of the tower, while being subject to improvement work, and Kumamon appearing in the Kumamon Square. I hope that many participants from outside of Kumamoto will enjoy what the location can offer inside and outside the venue. We look forward to meeting you at the coming meeting.