[Investigation by young members--comprehensive remarks as a chairman]

The theme of this symposium was "Investigation by young members--Introduction of their Projects and Progress--". This theme was timely because the president of this meeting, Dr. Minoru Tozuka (TMDU), and colleagues have recently been devoted to educate students who are expected to be laboratory technologists with research-oriented minds. Three members presented their papers. The first speaker was Dr. Kurano from The University of Tokyo, and he discussed the crucial role of apolipoprotein M in "sphingosine 1-phosphatology". The second speaker was Dr. Nakayama from Bunkyo Gakuen University, and her talk was focused on the comprehensive analysis of urinary proteins aiming to identify novel markers of the renal function. The final presentation, by Dr. Matsumoto from Shinshu University, was on studies on bacterial small-colony variants obtained from clinical samples. I chaired this symposium and was greatly encouraged as one of the teachers by the power of young investigators in this field.