Dear Colleagues,

As the president of the first scientific meeting of the Asian Society for Pediatric Research (ASPR), I am extremely delighted to invite all of you to the meeting at Keio Plaza Hotel, Tokyo from 24 to 26 November, 2005.

It is our great pleasure to hold the SPR meeting for the first time in Asia after the establishment of the ASPR in March 2005. The organizing committee will do our best to make this meeting successful. You may know that ASPR aims to promote pediatric research in Asia and to encourage collaboration between the various specialized fields of pediatrics, with the goal of maintaining pediatrics as a unified, scientifically oriented discipline. It is said that the 21^st century will be a century for Asian countries to assume leading roles in various fields such as in science as well and the economic world. Indeed, the current movement in the region has been rapidly catching up, for example in medicine, and thus we can expect continuing success. However, encouragement and powerful support, in particular with regard to trainees and young investigators, will be needed to accelerate further development. The ASPR should take upon itself the task of playing an important role in the development of pediatric research in Asia.

The organizing committee will award special monetary grants and travel funds to young investigators. We are expecting more than 300 participants from outside of this country, so we hope this meeting will provide a great opportunity to discuss our problems with each other. It is also important to spend informal moments together to make or renew friendships and generate many productive contacts and ideas.

On behalf of the organizing committee, it gives me great pleasure to invite you to participate in the first scientific meeting of ASPR.
I look forward to meeting you in Tokyo in November this year.