JSOT 2023

The  50th Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society of Toxicology with this year’s theme being on what is toxicology?

We have set the theme of this year’s meeting in the hope that the 50th Anniversary Annual Meeting will allow those who are active in diverse fields to rethink toxicology and to share with the next generation the joy and excitement of toxicological investigations. In addition, while looking back at the legacy of the past, we intend to emphasize the importance of continuing to innovate, as well as to identify what will undergo a change and what will remain the same.

Toxicology is often applied to study the “adverse effects” of chemicals. However, who in the academic field is going to oversee the effects of chemicals that are not “adverse” but have been reported to have a certain effect? Personally, I believe that toxicologists are the only ones proficient for this job, i.e., Toxicology involves the study of not only the adverse effects, but also the “effects themselves” of chemical substances on living organisms. In the future, the effect may be adversary as a result of new biological discoveries.