The first Taurine Symposium organized by Dr. Ryan Huxtable and the late Dr. Andre Barbeau was held in Tucson, Arizona, in 1975. Since that auspici ous event, nine international symposia on the role of taurine in biology have taken place. The locations for these meetings have been Tucson (two times), Rome, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Vancouver, Mexico City, Helsinki, and Florence. In 1977, due to the large number of scientists in Japan who were interested in the role of this unique amino acid in biological systems, we organized the Japanese Research Society on Sulfur Amino Acids with the...

The Third International Symposium on Neurotransmitter Receptors was held in Hiroshima at a time when the entire field of neurotransmitter receptors in the brain is progressing at an unprecedented pace. The sym- posium also marked my retirement as Professor and Chairman of the Third Department of Internal Medicine, Hiroshima University School of Medicine, and a new beginning as a Professor of the University of the Air. The symposium was remarkably successful, and there were enthusiastic responses from scientists allover the world, proving that the meeting was timely. The selected papers...