MEDICAL-EXPO 2008 in APLAR's World

First of all, as an organizing member of 9th Japanese Locomotor Science Forum, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to the organizing committee for their great effort to prepare for the 13th Congress of the Asia Pacific League of Associations for Rheumatology (APLAR) in Yokohama, Japan. It is my great pleasure that in the APLAR meeting, we will have a special symposium entitled “New era of locomotive science in Asia & Pacific” as a joint symposium of 9th Japanese Locomotor Science Forum and APLAR. As you know, the World Health Organization and 37 countries have proclaimed the year 2000-2010 as the Bone and Joint Decade, which is aimed to advance the understanding and treatment of locomotor disorders. And in fact, remarkable progress has been made recently in the understanding of the physiology and pathology as well as the molecular biology of the locomotor system, to which scientists and clinicians in the Asia-Pacific area have greatly contributed. In this symposium, we will invite distinguished speakers from the Asia-Pacific area to review the state of the art of this wide research area in order to develop new insights and promote novel interest and investigations. I am looking forward to seeing you in Yokohama!

Sakae Tanaka,
Assistant Professor,
Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Faculty of Medicine,
The University of Tokyo