The Japanese independently developed a cellular pertussis vaccine and an attenuated chicken-pox vaccine which I have now been licensed. Japanese research on autoimmunity holds out the hope for new methods to treat crippling diseases such as arthritis and lupus erythematosus. Since World War II Japan has fostered the development of science through the creation of new research institutes and university laboratories. Indeed, whole new cities are devoted to science. But institutes are not only bricks and mortar and gleaming new laboratories with the latest in computerized analytic equipment.
Laboratories are places where people labor night and day and often on weekends.
And it is the training of these Japanese scientists where there has developed a special relationship between the United States and Japan. In the aftermath of World War II, many of the universities and institutes of Europe and Japan were either destroyed or starved for resources. Young scientists from Japan and elsewhere flocked to the United States for graduate and post-graduate education and training in medical research. And they still come. Currently there are 350 visiting investigators.