Advanced Biomaterials in Biomedical Engineering and Drug Delivery Systems

First of all, I would like to share the great pleasure of the successful five-day symposium with every participant in the 5th Iketani Conference which was held in Kagoshima from April1S (Tuesday) to 22 (Saturday), 1995. Outstanding speakers enthusiastically presented their up-to-the-minute results. Relatively little time was allotted for each presentation to ensure asdnuch time as possible for intensive discussions on the particular topics that had just been p~esented: I was delighted to see that the lectures were of high quality, and the discu,ssionswere lively, exciting, and productive in a congenial atmosphere. We also had 92 papers in the poster session, in which young (and relatively young) scientists made every effort to present the novel results of their research in advanced biomaterials and drug delivery systems (DDS). I believe some of the research is most promising and will become noteworthy in the twenty-first century. It was a privilege for me to deliver a lecture at the special session of the symposium. In my introductory remarks, I pointed out five key terms in multifaceted biomaterials research: materials design, concept or methodology, devices, properties demanded, and fundamentals. I am confident that innovative progress in device manufacturing for end-use, e.g., artificial organs, vascular grafts, and DDS, can be brought about only through properly designed advanced materials that exhibit the desired functionality at the interface with any living body.