Chairman’s Message
My name is Takehiko Yokomizo, Graduate School of Medicine, Juntendo University, and I will serve as President of the Japanese Biochemical Society between 2024 and 2025. 32 years have already passed since I joined the Biochemical Society in 1991. I am deeply indebted to the Biochemical Society, which has nurtured me as a biochemist by allowing me to present my research almost every year and to meet many friends and collaborators. I also feel a strong connection with this society, which was founded by Dr. Samuro Kakiuchi, the second professor of the Department of Biochemistry at the University of Tokyo School of Medicine, my home institution.
When I was in elementary school, I loved to do experiments in the monthly supplement of a scientific magazine for children. I was strongly attracted to the word “biochemistry,” which I first encountered after entering university, and a senior colleague invited me to join a reading group of original Stryer biochemistry textbook. It took me about a year to finish the book, but the chemical formulas and explanations of reactions without hands-on experiments left me with a tasteless image. I had the opportunity to join the biochemistry lab for two years as an undergraduate student, but the experiments were mainly cell culture and differentiation experiments, and I never got to know the fun of biochemistry. In graduate school, I was allowed to rejoin the biochemistry department and finally encountered “real biochemistry”. Research using the most advanced techniques and equipments at the time, such as purification and molecular identification of unknown proteins by column chromatography and enzyme assays, and cloning of genes by cDNA library construction and hybridization, was truly “blood-pumping” and inspiring. I spent fulfilling days through the discovery and analysis of several molecules and was allowed to have my own laboratory. I feel that the time when I was a player (until around 2010) was a time when “biochemistry” had enough and persuasive power.
On the other hand, the environment surrounding biochemistry has changed drastically in the last 10 years. With the progress of the genome project, the sequence of the entire human genome has become readily available, greatly reducing opportunities for the discovery of new genes. Thanks to the sophistication of transcriptome and metabolomics technologies, it has become possible to obtain large amounts of molecular quantitative data, and there is a sense that analysis of such large amounts of data has become essential for publication in high-impact journals. At first glance, the governance of Japanese biochemists, who were good at precisely characterizing individual molecules, appears to have declined.
However, I believe that the biochemical approach is the most important and compelling way to elucidate life phenomena. The importance of finding important signals and metabolic pathways in large amounts of data and supporting them with biochemical analysis remains unchanged. I hope that young researchers will acquire the skills to conduct highly reproducible experiments with a firm grasp of accurate handling techniques for nucleic acids, proteins, sugars, lipids, and other molecules. The high reproducibility of papers by Japanese biochemists has been recognized worldwide, and I hope that this will continue for many years to come. It is the responsibility of the society to develop a new era of biology by incorporating new research approaches while inheriting the assets left by our predecessors.
Dr. Akira Kikuchi, the second-former president, worked hard to build good relationships between the JBS and international conferences such as IUBMB and FAOBMB. Dr. Hidenori Ichijo, the former president, devoted himself to improving the gender balance of the society’s board of directors and significantly increased the percentage of female board members, while at the same time making under-the-hood efforts to improve the relationship with the Japanese Molecular Biology Society. I would like to follow in the footsteps of the contributions of these professors and raise my voice to improve the following issues.
The first is to create an environment in which young researchers can continue their research activities in a stable manner. It is true that an increasing number of young researchers are not choosing academia because they do not want to be university instructors or postdoctoral fellows who are bound by tenure. I believe that the decrease in operating grants to universities and the excessive investment of research funds in competitive research funds are at the root of this problem. I am well aware that this is not a problem that can be solved by one academic society alone, but I feel that it is necessary to work together with other academic societies to speak out and lobby the political system. The second is to reform the image of the Biochemical Society. Past surveys have revealed that many young people have a negative image of biochemical societies, such as the fact that they have to wear suits when they make presentations at meetings, or that biochemical meetings are stiff and there are few young researchers. We would like to create an image of a Biochemical Society in which people can freely and comfortably participate by planning symposiums by young people, selecting young officers, and implementing the practice of “san-tsuke. Third is to improve the relationship with the Japanese Molecular Biology Society. I have always felt that the existence of two separate societies in Japan has few advantages and more disadvantages. On the other hand, after becoming involved in the management of the society as an officer of the Biochemical Society of Japan, I also understood that there are technical difficulties involved in having the two societies completely unite. Merging the two societies will not be easy, but I would like to make efforts to shorten the distance between the two societies, which share a common research direction.
The Biochemical Society of Japan consists of eight branches across the country, and each branch is characterized by its potent activities. The eight directors (branch presidents) elected by each branch is in charge of communicating local issues and the opinions of the branch associations to the head office. As a traditional society journal, we publish online the Japanese journal “Biochemistry” and the original English journal “Journal of Biochemistry”. Recently, we have also started to provide information via X (former Twitter), but it seems that we still have only a small number of followers. We would like to ask you to follow @jbs_seikagaku.
The Japanese Biochemical Society will celebrate its 100th anniversary in 2025. We will soon release the 100th anniversary commemorative website, and plan to hold a commemorative event at the 98th Annual Meeting in Kyoto in November 2025, as well as a 100th anniversary commemorative event in Tokyo in the same year. We would like to look back over the past 100 years and ask ourselves what goals we should set for the next 100 years.
I would be happy if we can further develop the Japanese Biochemical Society, which has been built up by many respected predecessors, and if we can manage the society in such a way that the governance of biochemistry in Japan can be communicated to the world even more strongly. As I am a novice, I need the help of all the members of the society. I would appreciate your guidance, opinions, and encouragement.
November 16th, 2023
Takehiko Yokomizo
President of the Japanese Biochemical Society
