Japanese Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko joined 230 people at a reception on the opening evening of Nature Medicine's first international conference in Japan (November 9–10th). "The Molecular Medicine Revolution" conference included sessions on neurodegeneration, cardiovascular disease, cancer and HIV, and was attended by more than 350 researchers and scientists. The conference was staged in central Tokyo at a venue that overlooks the outer moat of the Imperial Palace, and is the sixth Nature-related international conference to be held in the country.

Emperor Akihito has been a supporter of science in Japan for many years. He is an active researcher who has published papers on the Japanese gobi fish, and, in 1997, was awarded the first King Charles II medal for the Promotion of Science and its Place in Society, by the Royal Society during a state visit to Britain.

David Swinbanks introduces Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko

Sixteen of the world's most renowned biomedical researchers gave presentations on a wide range of topics, including papers by two senior Japanese scientists: Akira Kakizuka from the Osaka Bioscience Institute, who discussed the genetic and molecular basis of polyglutamine diseases, and Yusuke Nakamura, from the Institute of Medical Science, University of Tokyo, who described the isolation of p53 target genes and their clinical application.