The WPI Program participated in Annual Meeting of American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS2013) on Feb 14-18 in Boston, USA.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) is the biggest international non-profit organization for the advancement of science in the world. In addition to organizing membership and activities, AAAS publishes the journal Science, as well as many other scientific books and reports.
The Annual Meeting of the AAAS has been a widely recognized as the scientific event, with various networking opportunities and global media coverage. In the "family Science days", general public including kids and school students enjoy a variety of science events.

The main theme for AAAS 2013 was "The Beauty and Benefits of Science". In his opening address to AAAS2013, AAAS President Dr. William Press (The University of Texas at Austin) emphasized further developments in basic researches and those they bring in application and usefulness in our lives. He also expressed the strong expectations regarding "The Beauty and Benefits of Science" by researchers. Among a great variety of symposia in AAAS2013, the symposium titled "New Frontiers in Single Molecule Detection and Single Cell Analysis" on Feb. 16 was intimately related to IFReC. In the symposium, Dr. Scott Fraser (Caltech) and other top-class researchers presented their latest research developments in bioimaging field.

In our exhibition as part of "Japan pavilion at AAAS 2013", the PIOs (Press Information Officers) from the WPI institutes introduced the collaborative researches bridging various research fields in an international environment of the institutes. The staff from Japan including WPI members held a press conference with the theme, "Japan: Your next career destination" from 2:30pm on Feb. 15. In the conference, Mr. Ueda (MEXT WPI director) and other staff introduced "the internationally-opened institutes" in Japan (WPI, RIKEN etc.), and the new job information by 3 WPI institutes starting from 2012 was shown to the press.

The AAAS 2014 will be scheduled in February in Chicago, IL, USA.
(Photos & Report: Jun SAKANOUE)