Scientific Board : President's address

Masaharu Takigawa

January 1st, 2011

As the President of the newly established Scientific Board of the ICCNS, I would like to mention my view for the scientific future of the ICCNS.

Nowadays, numbers of papers studying CCN genes and proteins are logarithmically increasing, and the CCN nomenclature, which is a flagship of our society, has been fairly disseminated. These circumstances predict that our future is hopeful and brilliant.
However, in spite of the extreme efforts by Professor Bernard Perbal for ten years, some investigators still stick their old names. In other words, dissemination of CCN nomenclature is not enough yet for fulfillment of our hopeful and brilliant future.
To defeat such situation, I would strongly remind the members of scientific boards and all the ICCNS members to use the CCN nomenclature. Moreover, we should attract young investigators to the CCN filed and let them use the CCN nomenclature.

Since the CCN family of proteins plays key roles in many fundamental biological processes, the ICCNS is closely related to many scientific societies including basic and clinical ones.
As a unique society overlapping the interests of these societies, the ICCNS must establish a good relationship with them in order to further our standing in the scientific community. For this purpose, we should promote contacts with other scientific societies.
In addition, I would like all the ICCNS members, especially board members, to use the CCN nomenclature when they present their papers at the meetings of respective societies, which promotes awareness and participation in the ICCNS that will help to build ICCNS membership and prominence in the scientific community.

I would also like to mention the official journal of our society, Journal of Cell Communication and Signaling (JCCS).
The journal was originally created to disseminate knowledge concerning the CCN family genes and proteins as Cell Communication and Signaling (CCS). After shifting from CCS to JCCS, the focus was broaden and expanded. This is good for ICCNS as well as JCCS.
To accomplish its original role, it is desired that all the ICCNS members contribute to grow the JCCS by submitting our good papers and we should share our new important findings about CCN genes and proteins. This will be connected directly or indirectly to scientific future of the ICCNS.
I hope that all the members, especially board members, work tirelessly toward our hopeful and brilliant future of the ICCNS.
Thank you for your cooperation.

Masaharu TAKIGAWA,
President of the Scientific Board