“The UTokyo NY Conference 2017” was held on November 3, 2017 hosted by UTokyo New York Office. The purpose of the conference was to report on progress in studies with international collaborators and to find new collaborations with future partners. About 80 participants include researchers and related parties of companies from Japan and the United States.

The Conference started by opening remarks by Mr. Masaharu Masuyama, President of NY Office. During featured lecture session, Yoshihiro Kawaoka, DVM, PhD (IMSUT) offered a lecture: “Working with Deadly Viruses: Battling Ebola and Influenza,” and an industry, government and academia collaborative project led by Kazuo Oki, PhD (IIS) and Toshihiro Maki, PhD (IIS) provided several lectures under the title of “Against Alzheimer's, Tohoku rejuvenation project with the American Pecan nuts.” Speakers for this topic included delegates from City of Rikuzen-Takata and Golden Pecan Co.Ltd., and Jennifer Randall, PhD (New Mexico State University).

In the following panel discussion, panelists and participants had an active discussion touching on the history of the project.

For the “Future Topics” session, Yoshinori Murakami, MD, PhD, Dean (IMSUT) and Teruo Fujii, PhD, IIS Director General introduced the activities of their institutes and Masafumi Maeda, PhD (IIS) ended up the Conference by his closing remarks.

According to questionnaire results, the participants mostly thought that the lectures were amazing and found the Conference a precious opportunity to exchanges opinions with lecturers.