The 15th East Asia Joint Conference was held at the SAMSUNG Medical Center in Seoul from the 20^th to the 23^rd of July hosted by the Samsung Biomedical Research Institute, Sungkyunkwan University School of Medicine. Altogether 6 institutes participated. Aside from Sungkyunkwan University and IMSUT, these were the Institute for Virus Research of Kyoto University, the Institute of Biochemistry and Cell Biology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the Institute of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology of National Taiwan University and the Institute of Molecular Biology & Genetics of Seoul National University. This symposium started 14 years ago with the aim of deepening exchanges among top Asian biomedical scientists, and the participating institutes rotate hosting duties.

　 Four faculty members and 5 graduate students or postdoctoral students from each institute took part and the faculty members gave oral presentations of 20 minutes including Q&A, while the students supplemented their posters with 5-minute poster talks. The presentations were very high-level, and we felt strongly that Asia is becoming a front runner in the biomedical field. TOMY DIGITAL BIOLOGY CO., LTD. contributes generous funds each year to this symposium and also provides prizes to excellent speakers. This year, young scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kyoto University and Seoul National University got the poster presentation awards.

　The curtain descended on this symposium with a tour of Seoul on the last day. Next to host this symposium series will be the Institute for Virus Research at Kyoto University.