The 36th Annual ISOTT conference was held in Sapporo, Japan during August 3-7, 2008. It was the second occasion that the ISOTT meeting was held in Japan; the first one was held in the same place in 1987 organized by Professor Masaji Mochizuki.

The meeting consisted of one special lecture by the Honorary President Professor Mamoru Tamura, 8 invited lectures, 7 organized sessions (31 presentations altogether), a specially planned Asians session (4 presentations), 20 general oral presentations, and 64 poster presentations. In addition, we had an opportunity to hold a satellite symposium in the same venue entitled "Oxygen Transport and Medicine" (4 presentations) chaired by Professor Makoto Suematsu, Keio University School of Medicine. We welcomed 131 full registrants (with 15 accompanying persons) and 38 one-day-ticket holders.

In addition to promoting enthusiastic in-depth discussions in the conference, at after-hours, we did our best so that the participants could relax and feel ISOTT's traditional familiar atmosphere. One example was the Summer Ski Jump demonstrations performed by Mr. Kazuyoshi Funaki, the Gold Medalist in 1998's Winter Olympic Games in Nagano, Japan.

Eiji Takahashi, Ph.D.
Department of Physiology
Yamagata University School of Medicine
Yamagata, Japan