I am deeply grateful to you for your kindness to the Japan Society of Gene and Cell Therapy (JSGCT). I was recommended as the President of the JSGCT’s 28th Annual Meeting, which will be held in Fukuoka for three days from July 14 to 16, 2022. Originally, I was entrusted with the 26^th Annual Meeting, but as you know, the first state of emergency was declared at the last minute over coronavirus pandemic, and the tough decision to cancel the meeting was made. Thus, this 28^th Meeting takes “revenge”.

The first year of Japan’s newest era, Reiwa (2019), marks thirty years since the world’s first gene therapy trial on ADA deficiency was performed in the United States in May 1989 and 25 years since the JSGT (predecessor of the JSGCT) was established. Gene therapy, which was initially launched to great fanfare, did not demonstrate the desired clinical results and had been plagued by a series of side effects since 1999, including a death at the University of Pennsylvania and the onset of leukemia in a patient with X-linked SCID, and subsequently triggered a slide into a long period of hardship.

While many researchers have abandoned gene therapy, some who believed in its potential persevered in their studies, finally resulting in the approval of Luxturna^® (prescription gene therapy for diseases resulting from mutations on the RPE65 gene) in 2017, Kymriah^® (CAR-T cell therapy) the following year, and Zolgensma^® (gene therapy for spinal muscular atrophy) in 2019 in the United States. Now gene therapy formulations have attracted attention of pharmaceutical companies worldwide as a new class of drugs with great potential .Furthermore, mRNA vaccines and adenovirus vectors have hit the market as a powerful weapon in the fight against the novel coronavirus and begun to exert efficacy at a level different from previous vaccines. New gene therapy formulation will be continuously introduced into real-world medicine.

It is during these changing times that we will hold the JSGCT2022, our 28th Annual Meeting. JSGCT has just ended the first quarter-century; during the period we had a good start and then overcame numerous hardships, and at last, a ray of hope has been emerged. In other words, the ten years from 2020 will be the beginning of 2nd Quarter and the decade of new start for JSGCT.

In the recent years, JSGCT has attracted interest from many researchers, as well as pharmaceutical companies and related businesses, especially dealing with gene therapy and regenerative medicine, and the 24^th Annual Meeting (2019) gathered more than 700 participants. This continuous increase trend is seen also in ASGCT (US); more than 4,000 participants are reported to have participated in the 2019 meeting held in Washington, D.C. Hoping that widespread vaccination will put an end to the coronavirus pandemic, JSGCT2022 to be held fully offline is aimed at 1,000 participants, and we would like to give a strong impetus to gene and cell therapy in Japan, beyond the scope of industry, academia, and government.

We look forward to the enthusiastic and heated discussions that will be a perfect match for Hakata’s hot summer days.