The 6th International
Micromachine Symposium
The 6th International Micromachine Symposium
was held at the Science Museum in Kitanomaru Park,Tokyo, for two days from November 9 to 10, 2000.
On the first day, the opening ceremony of the program started with the speeches of three honored guests,
Mr. Shinichiro Oota, director-general of the Machineryand Information Industries Bureau in the Ministry ofInternational Trade and Industry, Dr. Koji Kajimura,director-general of the Agency of Industrial Science andTechnology, and Mr. Hiroshi Mitsukawa, executive director of NEDO. The total registered participants forthe two-day program numbered 447 (51 of them werefrom overseas).
The first lecture in the symposium on the first day
was “Artificial Heart Research by the Use of Micromachine” by Dr. Shinichi Nitta, professor of the Inst. ofDevelop. Aging and Cancer, who is also vice-presidentof Tohoku University. He introduced the audience tocurrent R&D on artificial organs such as artificial hearts
as well as outlining future expectations and prospects.
This year’s program included a study on health andmicromachines in Session 3 entitled, “Thinking ofMicromachines”. Front-line researchers made presentations on today’s hot topics related to micromachinetechnologies, such as medical practices making use of
information derived from the deciphering of the genome,telehealth, and robot surgery.
Medical treatment technology has been regarded as
one of the most promising micromachine application
fields. We were impressed by those presentations thatshowed how micromachine technology has possibilities
for medical care in the near future. The content of thespecial guest speech is presented on the following pages
for your reference.
Other sessions of the program held on the first day
include Session 2 “The Path to New Industries in the21st Century,” Session 4 “Overseas Activities,” and Session 5 “Innovative R&D.” There were 16 invited lecturers, including 8 from abroad, who made presentationsin the sessions. The following list shows lecturers fromabroad.
Jean Philippe Gouy / LIMMS / CNRS-IIS
Michael Gaitan / National Institute of Standards
and Technology
Ming Wu / UCLA
Masako Miyazaki / University of Alberta
Helmann Sandmaier / HSG-IMIT
Paolo Dario / Scoula Superiore Sant’ Anna
Young-Ho Cho / KAIST

6The second day of the program was intended for theJapanese national project “Micromachine Technology”
under the Industrial Science and Technology Frontier
Program. Mr. Yoshikazu Yamaguchi, Director for Machinery and Aerospace R&D of the Agency of Industrial
Science and Technology reported the current status ofR&D activities under the project. He also introduced
the status quo and future prospects in conjunction withthree national research institutes, including the Mechanical Engineering Laboratory under the Agency ofIndustrial Science and Technology. Furthermore, Mr.
Tatsuaki Ataka, chairman of the R&D working group of
Micromachine Center presented state-of-the-art R&D
activities in the second phase. Four chief examiners of
the R&D working group of Micromachine Center disclosed the results of the technological trend surveys. Also
seven other presentations were made concerningachievements of the ISTF projects.
The planning and contents of the presentations inthis symposium were highly appreciated by the participants, as proved by their comments in the questionnaire
sheets collected upon completion of the whole program.
The schedule for the next symposium is shown below.
The 7th International Micromachine Symposium
Period: October 31 (Wed) to November 1 (Thu), 2001
Place: Science Hall, Science Museum in Kitanomaru
Park, Tokyo

View of Symposium Hall