On behalf of the organizing committee, I am pleased to announce that the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Japan Diabetes Society (JDS) will be held from May 21 to May 23, 2020. I appreciate every member of the society and participants for the generous supports to make this meeting great.
Thirty-five years have passed since the 28th JDS Annual Meeting held in Otsu City in 1985 under the leadership of Prof. Yukio Shigeta. Since then, the field of diabetes has been growing, especially, in the field of molecular mechanisms of diabetes and its complications, development of drugs, and medical devices. Nonetheless, the field has also been faced with ever-increasing clinical challenges arising from the prevalence of young obese diabetes and elderly diabetes.
Improving the quality of life of patients is our mission rather than just focusing on the glycemic control of the patients with diabetes mellitus. To achieve our mission, it is extremely important to cope with the broad range of specialties to fight against outbreaks of micro- and macro-angiopathy, cancer, cognitive dysfunction, and sarcopenia. JDS has long been promoting individualized medical care. I believe that we need further efforts to develop a team approach. Collaboration of basic scientists and clinicians is becoming more important to achieve rapid and efficient transition between clinical needs and basic research. Hence, we have resolved the theme of this meeting to be “Basic and Clinical Science-based Medicine for Diabetes Total Care with Team Approach.”
We are going to invite Dr. Gerald Shulman of Yale University, last year’s American Diabetes Association Banting Medal winner, and Dr. Hirotsugu Ueshima of Shiga University of Medial Science. In addition, the year of 2020 is the 99th year since Dr. Banting and Dr. Best discovered insulin in 1921. We are going to hold “the 100th Anniversary Eve Symposium of the Discovery of Insulin.”
The month of May in the Land of Lake, flowing from spring to summer, presents us with many scenic and historic sites such as Mt. Hiei covered with fresh green; Ishiyamadera Temple in the Tale of Genji; Omi Jingu Shrine, famed for the movie of Chihayafuru; Shigaraki, the land of ceramic art; and Hikone Castle, a national treasure. We wish that you have a chance to bring back memories of Shiga in addition to the scientific discussion.
We look forward to seeing everyone of you at the annual meeting.
June 1, 2019
