News

More than 150 researchers took part in the 2015 IMS Research Retreat held November 24 and 25 at Shonan Village Center in Hyama. The hotel/conference center overlooks Sagami Bay and has a commanding view of Mt. Fuji. This was the third retreat since the former Research Center for Allergy and Immunology (RCAI) and Center for Genomic Medicine (CGM) joined forces in 2013 to form the Center for Integrative Medical Sciences (IMS). There were clear signs of thriving integration of the two formerly independent groups in terms of Center projects, along with increasing collaborations between individual groups. The first session on Tuesday featured a mix of talks by investigators studying innate and adaptive immunity and genomics of disease development, as well as one talk focusing on technological development for system wide analysis and collaborations in IMS. “Collaboration” was a word heard many times at this retreat and some concrete proposals were put forward, for example establishing workshops on genome analyses to make these approaches more accessible to biologists. The poster presentation held after the talks had to be split into three sessions to accommodate the nearly one hundred presenters and to allow space for the lively discussions that took place around individual posters. After this session, former IMS Director Dr. Koyasu led the Kanpai! to start off the evening’s buffet dinner followed by a social hour. On Wednesday morning, two new IMS PI’s, had the opportunity to introduce their laboratories and ongoing research. After that, leaders of projects involving the entire center, Metabolism, Drug Eruption and Skin Disease, briefly outlined progress in these recently established efforts. The session finished with updates on two RIKEN-wide projects, Single Cell and Epigenetics. IMS Deputy Director Dr. Koseki then officially closed what all agreed had been a very successful retreat.