It is my great pleasure to welcome you all to the 15th Samsung International Symposium on Molecular Medicine on “Cancer Metastasis and Cancer Stem Cell Biology : New Insights into Refractory Cancer”.

When we started this symposium 15 years ago, we were expecting an era of new medicine, the molecular medicine. So the title of the first symposium was "An Approaching Era of Molecular Medicine". As we explore more and more about the molecular mechanism of cell function, we can understand human diseases on molecular and cellular basis. Nowadays, the knowledge on the basic mechanism of cell function is integrated into the clinical research and the translational research is getting more and more important to elucidate the mechanism of complicated human diseases and to find out new and better diagnostic tools and treatments.  For last 15 years, this symposium has provided great opportunities to learn the most advanced knowledge on molecular medicine.  The themes of the symposium have covered various fields of molecular medicine, including intracellular signaling, genomics, proteomics and stem cell research. Recently, we have focused more on disease oriented themes, such as molecular imaging, metabolic diseases and personalized medicine.

This year, we selected "Cancer Metastasis and Cancer Stem Cell Biology" as the theme for the symposium. Since the first discovery of human oncogene, scientists have try hard to elucidate the genes and genetic changes involved in the carcinogenesis of human cancers, and their accomplishments have enabled us to develop target specific cancer therapeutics. But still the molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the development, progress and metastasis of the most human cancers are not fully understood. Recently, tumor stem cell has emerged as important player for the development and metastasis of tumors, and suggested to be a good candidate for therapeutic target.  In this one and a half day symposium, we will cover three aspects of cancer stem cells. First we will discuss cancer stem cell as a seed for the tumor development and the environment for the proliferation of cancer stem cells, and then the role of cancer stem cell in tumor metastasis. Lastly, we will discuss the cancer stem cells as a therapeutic target. I truly hope that this symposium provides a unique opportunity to exchange views on the most recent advances in the role of cancer stem cells in the development and metastasis of human cancers. I hope to see you all in the 15th Samsung International Symposium on Molecular Medicine on October 8 and 9, 2010.

Thank you.

Joobae Park, MD, PhD