An exciting new year- 2010- has dawned. Foremost, on behalf of The Korean Association of Immunologists, I would like to wish you the utmost success and happiness in the coming years. For the past several decades, The Korean Association of Immunologists has experienced constant developments and innovative changes, for which I am extremely grateful. Particularly, the past few years have been very exciting with several significant achievements that are the results of accumulated efforts of previous chairmen and members of the association, to whom I express my sincere thanks and praise.

Notably, we have successfully been registered under the National Research Foundation of Korea, and are currently seeking to be registered under pubmedcentral (PMC) as the first step in a series of efforts to globalize our publications.

Looking back at the past year, we realize more than ever that we play a critical role as national and international experts in immunology, more so in today’s society. I’m sure that you are familiar with the global pandemics of newly emerging influenza viruses and infectious diseases. Despite the threatening situations that face us, it is a tragedy that the public awareness on our area of study is relatively low. Our goal for 2010 is to deliver the simple message of the importance of immunology.

This aspiration is not for the exclusive benefits and acknowledgement of our area of expertise, but for practical awareness and academic purposes for the general public. I encourage all members to spread the word about immunology to those close to them. As done in the past by my predecessors, I pledge to enhance and further develop projects currently in progress and also focus on advocating immunology to the entire nation.

Again, I express my deepest gratitude to you all. I wish you the best of health in the New Year.
Thank you