Opening remarks at the 1st Japanese Society for Cultured Foods Conference

It is my great pleasure to be able to hold the 1st Annual Meeting of the Japanese Society for Cultured Foods here.
In recent years, as we face global challenges such as climate change, population growth, and environmental impact, the nature of "food" is being seriously reexamined. "Cultivated foods," based on cell and tissue culture technology, are attracting attention as a new means of food production that does not rely on traditional agriculture or livestock farming.
The Society was established with the aim of bringing together knowledge from a wide range of fields, including cellular agriculture, regenerative medicine, biomaterials, tissue engineering, food science, environmental science, and social ethics, and through interdisciplinary collaboration and discussion, working together to create a sustainable food future.
The commemorative first conference will have the theme of "Future Food Frontier - Creating Rich Food from Cells," and through sharing cutting-edge research results and dialogue with companies and government agencies, will paint a vision for realizing "rich food" from a variety of perspectives.
We hope that this conference will be a forum for all of you to acquire new knowledge and cultivate the seeds of collaboration, as well as a forum for nurturing young researchers, thereby contributing to the development of this field.
Finally, we would like to express our sincere gratitude to all those involved for their support and cooperation in organizing this tournament.

1st Conference of the Japanese Society for Cultured Foods Conference Chairperson: Tatsuya Shimizu (Institute of Advanced Biomedical Sciences, Tokyo Women's Medical University)