On 12 July, the “Symposium on Neuroscience” was held at Keio University Mita Campus as a commemorative event of Keio’s 150th anniversary. This symposium was also positioned as a satellite symposium of the Annual Meeting of the Japan Neuroscience Society, which was held from 9 to 11 July. Since it was also co-hosted by two Global COE Programs, it was much more than a simple in-house event.

The symposium was titled “From molecule to cognition”, and President Anzai, who himself is a cognitive scientist, extended his expectations for the symposium. This was followed by a lecture by Prof. Tom Curran of the University of Pennsylvania, entitled “Promise and problems of molecular targeted therapies in children: Lessons from Hedgehog pathway inhibitors” and a lecture by Prof. Okano of the School of Medicine entitled “Regeneration of the damaged Central Nervous System”, which pointed out the possibility of crossover research of basic medicine and clinical medicine.

After the break, Prof. Richard Frackowiak of the University College London delivered a lecture entitled “Imaging cognition and genetics” and presented data that taxi drivers of London have a relatively large hippocampus, an application of leading-edge research of brain imaging. The final lecture was delivered by Nobel laureate in chemistry Prof. Peter Agre of the Johns Hopkins Malaria Research Institute. He delivered a lecture entitled “Aquaporin water channels: from atomic structure to clinical medicine”, which is related to his research that led to winning the Nobel Prize, with an interesting episode that his mother praised him for the first time in his life when his name was introduced in a cosmetics company advertisement.

At the end of the symposium, Prof. Watanabe of the Faculty of Letters, who was moderator of the symposium, made closing remarks and mentioned that the 21st century is a century of integration in science, and that the integration from molecule to cognition is its first step. Active discussions were held throughout the symposium, and it turned out to be a fruitful event.