The symposium held in London in 1960 on "Quinones in Electron Transport", sponsored by the Ciba Foundation, might be considered the first of the international conferences focused on Coenzyme Q.　It took place only a few years after this quinone was isolated from beef heart mitochondria by Fred Crane (in 1957) and chemically elucidated by Karl Folkers (in 1958).　Dr. Folkers, who was the chairman of that symposium, had to wait for more than a decade to celebrate the symposium again: this happened when by the mid 70s two Japanese companies, Nisshin and Kaneka, succeeded in the commercial production of Coenzyme Q10. In fact, following the pioneer work of Prof. Yuichi Yamamura, coenzyme Q10 was introduced on the market by Eisai Co. Ltd.

　　The first International Symposium on Biomedical and Clinical Aspects of Coenzyme Q, that Dr. Folkers had long dreamed and hoped for, was successfully held at Lake Yamanaka near Mt. Fuji, Japan in 1976 with support of the Naito Foundation. Many well-known Coenzyme Q researchers including F. Crane, L. Ernster, P. B. Garland, D. J. Morre, H. Rudney, T. Ramasarma, and T. Yamagami, as well as K. Folkers and Y. Yamamura, co-chairmen participated as speakers in the symposium. I was also one of them. Thereafter, the symposium was held almost every two years as shown below.

　　In 1997 the International Coenzyme Q10 Association was constituted as a non-profit association by F. Beal, F. Crane, L. Ernster, T. Kishi, P. Langsjoen, G. Lenaz, G. P. Littarru, S. A. Mortensen, T. Nakamura, E. Niki, Y. Oka, and Y. Yamamoto, with the fundamental contribution of the First Supporting companies, namely Eisai, Kaneka, Nisshin and Pharma Nord. The main objective of the Association was, and still is, the promotion and diffusion of basic and applied research on the biomedical and clinical aspects of Coenzyme Q10. Thereafter, the international meetings took the name of Conference of the International Coenzyme Q10 Association.

　　On behalf of the organizing committee, I would like to welcome you to the 5th conference of the International Coenzyme Q10 Association, to be held in Kobe in 2007, the year of the 50th anniversary of the discovery of Coenzyme Q10 and the 10th anniversary of the Association.

Takeo Kishi
Chairman of Organizing Committee
5th Conference of International Coenzyme Q10 Association
Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences、Kobe Gakuin University
1-1-3 Minatojima Chuo-ku, Kobe 650-8586, Japan