Dear participants of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Japan DDS Society

I hope that you are all in good health in this summer heat.

We would like to express our sincere gratitude for the generosity of everyone who attended the 40th Annual Meeting of the Japan DDS Society, which was held at the Tsukuba International Congress Center for three days from July 9th (Tuesday) to 11th (Thursday).

Thanks to everyone, we were able to successfully conclude the conference with 1,077 participants, including some online.

On the first day of the conference, we held a memorial symposium in collaboration with the Society for Biomaterials, Japab for Professor Allan S. Hoffman, a professor emeritus at the University of Washington in the United States who was a pioneer in biomaterials and DDS research and had a great influence on researchers in related fields in Japan. Nearly 250 people participated. We also held an "educational session by cutting-edge researchers" and a "cutting-edge technology for DDS" session by exhibiting companies, which were well received. We added chairs at short notice, especially for the educational sessions, but we still had more people than we could fit in, and we apologize for the inconvenience. We are extremely sorry for the poor estimates made by the conference chair.

On the second and third days, under the theme of "Towards a New Stage of Challenges," lively discussions were held in three special lectures, six symposiums, four workshops, general lectures, and poster sessions. In particular, the English hybrid session, which was held for the first time this year, had approximately 200 presentations in three hybrid rooms, and it was very impressive to see many attendees at the on-site venue engaged in lively discussions. It is easy to imagine the next generation of researchers active all over the world. The future of DDS is bright!

In addition, to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Japan Society for DDS, we held a 40th anniversary symposium, "Knowing the past and thinking about the future of the Japan Society for DDS," and a celebration party, which was organized by the society and were well attended. The wonderful lectures and congratulatory speeches created a festive mood, and we felt like we were in a time machine for the future.

In addition, we were able to successfully hold 37 corporate exhibitions and 15 luncheon seminars. We would like to express our deepest gratitude to all the sponsoring companies for their support. In addition to the usual presentation and poster awards, we also established a journal award in the English presentation category with the support of international journals. We would also like to express our sincere gratitude to the publishers who cooperated with us.

The winners are listed at the URL below.
Winners List

We would like to express our deepest gratitude to the speakers, the various organizations who cooperated, and the organizing committee and symposium chairs who helped plan and run the academic conference despite their busy schedules.

We apologize for any shortcomings during the conference, and we ask for your understanding. This conference was created by a professor who had only done research, together with the young executive committee members, on a shoestring. I know it is far from a "perfect event," but I am deeply grateful for your understanding and generosity.

I would normally bow and express my gratitude to you all, but I would like to inform you of the end of the conference in writing.

Finally, I would like to wish you all good health and continued success.

Respectfully,

July 17, 2024
Chairman of the 40th Japan Society of Drug Delivery Systems Academic Conference, Yukio Nagasaki