Message from the Director

The days leading up to the year's end tend to be chaotic, but they also provide one with a valuable stimulus to look back on milestones passed and ahead to new objectives. As 2003 comes to a close, it's good to be able to take stock of the achievements made by researchers at the RIKEN Center for Developmental Biology, the challenges we face in the years ahead, and the state of our rapidly evolving science. This year has seen the emergence of news and civic issues that have placed the fields of developmental biology, regeneration and regenerative medicine frequently in the spotlight and sometimes at the center of controversy on the world stage, a position accompanied by all the advantages and drawbacks that public prominence entails.

For us at the CDB, the year began with the unqualified (and uncontroversial) success in March of our first annual symposium on The Origin and Formation of Multicellular Systems, a three-day meeting of more than 200 distinguished speakers, poster presenters and attendees who gathered to discuss metazoan biology, from its single-celled forebears to its greatest evolutionary achievement in the formation of networks comprising billions of neurons. We look forward to hosting more such meetings on a yearly basis, beginning with our next symposium on Developmental Remodeling in March of 2004, which will be held on the CDB campus in an auditorium designed to increase the Center's capacity for scientific meetings and expand its ability to provide a venue for international exchange across fields.

Research advances from CDB labs have also provided a string of highlights this year. As you will see from the pages of this report, scientists at the CDB have made strides forward on many fronts, from uncovering new molecular mechanisms at work in the asymmetric division, signaling and guided migration of cells, to developing new technologies that may one day enable the targeted differentiation of embryonic stem cells toward clinically relevant ends. Studies in evolutionary development have also provided broadened contexts and perspectives, finding possible roots for the central nervous system in the genome of a tiny flatworm and challenging conventional wisdom about the regulatory origins of the hindbrain.

Of course, this science did not take place in a vacuum. The central pillars of the Center's research mission – developmental biology, regeneration and the scientific bases for regenerative medicine – are all vibrantly dynamic, truly global fields of endeavor, and the CDB is pledged to remain fully engaged with international colleagues at the organizational, laboratory and institutional levels. In 2003, this commitment was characterized by the establishment of scientific exchange relationships with the University of Texas Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences and the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory Limited in Singapore, paving the way for new and better opportunities to visit and host researchers from these institutions. We look forward to increasing the number and range of our inter-organizational exchange programs in the years ahead.

Domestically, Japan saw increased attention to a number of related issues and research fields. The national government unveiled plans for the Leading Projects, initiatives set up to fund mid-term research into a number of key areas identified as having the potential to improve public health, welfare and economic well-being. As the largest center for the study of developmental biology in Japan, the CDB received funding to carry out Leading Project research into potential applications for stem cells in regenerative medicine. Embryonic stem cells also featured in the national news this year, which saw the first establishment of a new line of human ES cells by a Japanese laboratory in Kyoto University. ES cells represent a biological resource of potentially revolutionary importance, but whose study demands careful consideration and ethical restraint. The use of human ES cells is for biomedical research is permitted in Japan, and in 2003 a number of CDB labs applied for permission to use the new Kyoto cell lines. Approval of these research plans will allow scientists here to explore the secrets of cell differentiation and pluripotency, and perhaps one day to contribute to the development of cell-replacement therapies for intractable illnesses such as diabetes and Parkinson's disease.

As a basic research institute, the CDB also appreciates the fundamental importance of maintaining ties with the world of academia, and we have pursued active affiliations with some of Japan's top graduate school programs in the biosciences and regenerative medicine, allowing students from affiliated programs to conduct their academic research using the Center's facilities. This year, we were proud to formalize relationships with the Kyoto University Graduate School of Medicine, the Nara Advanced Institute of Science and Technology Graduate School of Biological Sciences, and the Kwansei Gakuin University Bioscience Department, bringing the total number of such affiliations to six, with more planned for 2004.

Public communications and outreach also featured prominently on the Center's calendar this year. In May, the CDB opened its doors to the public for its first Open House, which was attended by more than 1,000 visitors who took advantage of the opportunity to take in talks on stem cells and programmed cell death, join in mock experiments, and sneak a peek at a day in the life of a developmental biology lab. The Center also joined in the public educational activities at the Kobe BioWeek event in August, a biotechnology convention that saw more than 8,000 attendees, including many who visited the CDB in a virtual sense via two-way video lectures and realistic software simulations of laboratory equipment.

In retrospect, the year has been a full one, and it has been gratifying to participate in the Center's activities both as a scientist and an administrator. So it is a great pleasure for me to introduce our 2003 Annual Report, which illustrates the range and depth of research at the CDB and serves both as a spark for happy memories and as a source of inspiration as we enter a new year, with its promise of new discoveries and change.

Masatoshi Takeichi

Director

CDB, RIKEN Kobe Institute

December 30, 2003