Dear Friends and Colleagues,
PRION 2016 was held at Tokyo, from 10th to 13th in May, 2016 with great success! There were 373 participants from 26 countries.
The scientific program included 2 opening lectures, 26 invited lectures, 23 oral and 193 poster presentations. On the first day, the workshop of Animal Prion Diseases sponsored by OECD was held at the same venue with a large number of participants (134). During the lunch break each day, attendees enjoyed a luncheon seminar; “Far infrared disinfectant water inactivates prions”, “From Prion diseases to Alzheimer's disease”, “Clinicopathological feature of genetic Prion diseases in Japan” and “Alpha-synuclein prions” in addition to a beautiful Obento (Japanese lunch box). The scientific level of these seminars was very high. Networking occasions were also well attended with over 210 participants at the welcome reception and 128 guests at the gala dinner on the last day. There were 10 and 11 students in the two Teaching Courses at Tokyo Medical and Dental University from 7th to 9th in May. The Prion and Prion diseases community is certainly growing and developing.
Therefore I am quite sure PRION 2016 was a great success scientifically. Furthermore, as I emphasized repeatedly, PRION 2016 was not only a place for participants to report great scientific achievements, but also a very good opportunity to increase and improve the understanding of prion and Prion diseases in the general population. We had a press conference entitled “Is Alzheimer's disease or Parkinson's disease infectious?” on 11th and another on bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), chronic wasting disease (CWD) of deer and experimental one of dogs and pigs on 12th May. More than 10 members of the media attended each conference.
Unfortunately the Prime Minister of Japan Mr. Shinzou Abe could not come to the Opening Ceremony and I was asked to deliver his message to all the attendees in his place. This was very moving and encouraging to us and was followed by the speeches of Dr. Fumimaro Takaku (President, the Japanese Association of Medical Sciences and Chair, the Japanese Intractable Disease Foundation) and Dr. Makoto Suematsu (President, the Japanese Agency for Medical Research and Development) who promised their continuing support for research on Prion and Prion diseases. The co-chairs of international and Japanese patients' associations also delivered their messages.
In PRION 2016, there was the first announcement of the PRION 2016 Tokyo Declaration that recommends further international cooperation to promote research on Prion and Prion diseases and underlines the importance of increasing the understanding in the general population worldwide of the need to overcome Prion diseases. The Declaration was signed by the representatives of researchers and patients. In 1986 when the first BSE case was found, I had been studying neuropathology in New York where there were many AIDS patients, but no established etiology and no treatment. Many of the media reported that AIDS was threatening the very existence of human beings. However, last year, as a result of international collaboration in overcoming AIDS, the WHO finally announced HIV infection was under our control! How about Prion disease? At the moment, we do not know the mechanism of prion protein transformation or transmission nor the mechanism of neurodegeneration. However in the light of our experience with AIDS, I believe we can overcome Prion diseases with our wisdom and close collaboration. The PRION 2016 Tokyo Declaration is a message from our hearts to all the people in the world. We would like to share the declaration with the readers of PRION.
Acknowledgement
We thank Prof. Robert Will for kindly reviewing the manuscript.