International Student Research Forum 2011 (ISRF 2011), the seventh in a series of annual forums that began in 2005, was held in Tokyo from Oct 11 through Oct. 14. Altogether 38 Ph.D. course students from China, Nebraska (USA), Australia and Japan presented their research, and 9 faculty/administration members from the three overseas institutions also attended. This year’s ISRF was hosted by IMSUT, which last hosted the forum in 2007.  Student participants and accompanying faculty/administration members were housed at the National Olympic Memorial Youth Center (NYC), where the scientific sessions were also held. While not luxurious, the room accommodations, meeting halls and cafeteria at NYC were clean, comfortable and fully adequate for housing the forum under cost-conscious circumstances. The only substantial disadvantage of the venue was its location near Sangūbashi Station along the Odakyū Odawara Line, which precluded IMSUT nonparticipants from casually dropping in on any of the superb scientific sessions.

The meeting commenced with an orientation session the evening of Oct. 11, followed by an opening ceremony the next morning at which Prof. Kiyono, IMSUT Dean, welcomed all the participants from overseas. Following opening comments, the students split into two concurrent scientific sessions, while the faculty and administrative representatives of IMSUT, the Graduate University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (GUCAS), the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and Griffith University (GU) huddled nearby to discuss the future of the ISRF. UNMC’s Keith Swarts announced that they will host the forum in August 2012, and GU’s Thomas Toh confirmed that they will host the following year. Prof. Xiangbin Zhu, who is  Assistant President of  GUCAS, emphasized how difficult it is to pick only 10 students from altogether 32 separate Chinese Academy of Sciences institutes. Keith Swarts agreed to accept more GUCAS participants next year in Omaha.

The scientific sessions covered a diverse range of topics in biomedical science and beyond. The broad range of biomedical fields added to the challenge of presentation; in addition to the challenge of presenting in English, students had to provide additional explanation and describe their research using terms that could be understood by a broad audience. But in the future, these same students will have to describe the importance of their work to the general public, and this forum provided good training. Judging by the high quality of the ensuing Q&A sessions, the students succeeded in communicating their results, and the significance of their works. Yu Mu, student leader of the GUCAS delegation, who himself gave a highly memorable talk, commented afterwards that following a talk on liver stem cell proliferation by Keiichi Ito of IMSUT, he could scarcely sleep that night as the possibilities swirled through his mind.

IMSUT Students and the overseas student delegation leaders played a major role in planning and running the forum. This role included determining the order of speakers and assembling the abstracts booklet, chairing the scientific sessions, choosing the destinations for the social excursion held on the afternoon of Oct. 13, and emceeing the closing reception, which included an exchange of mementos selected by the students. Involvement in these aspects of the forum is an integral aspect of training future scientific leaders.