Taurine and the Heart

The first Taurine Symposium organized by Dr. Ryan Huxtable and the late Dr. Andre Barbeau was held in Tucson, Arizona, in 1975. Since that auspici­ ous event, nine international symposia on the role of taurine in biology have taken place. The locations for these meetings have been Tucson (two times), Rome, Philadelphia, Tokyo, Vancouver, Mexico City, Helsinki, and Florence. In 1977, due to the large number of scientists in Japan who were interested in the role of this unique amino acid in biological systems, we organized the Japanese Research Society on Sulfur Amino Acids with the encouragement and financial assistance of the Taisho Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd (Tokyo). Annual meetings have been held, and the membership has expanded from 78 to 414 in 1987; the number of presentations has increased during this time span from 29 to 74. The symposium in Tokyo in 1982, "Sulfur Amino Acids, Biochemical and Clinical Aspects" [1], was held to celebrate the 5th Annual Meeting of our Society. I would like to emphasize that in Japan we have an active Research Society especially directed to the study of sulfur amino acids. We have published our own semi-annual journal entitled Sulfur Amino Acids. Our society is an inter­ disciplinary research society since taurine is a highly diversified compound that interconnects physiology, biochemistry, pharmacology, nutrition, and medicine. One exciting fringe benefit of taurine research and the society has been the fostering of contacts with distinguished scientists from many varied medical fields.