The International Symposium on Environmental Specimen Bank organized by the Center for Marine Environmental Studies (CMES) was held at the Media Centre of Ehime University, Japan from 3rd - 5th December, 2009. The opening remark was given by Prof. Yasunobu Yanagisawa, President of Ehime University after which Prof. Shinsuke Tanabe introduced the Environmental Specimen Bank (ESB) and Global Center of Excellence (Global-COE) to the gathering. After a group photograph, the programmed zoomed into the keynote speeches and oral presentations. The first session was jointly chaired by Dr. Tomohiko Isobe and Kwadwo Ansong Asante.

Prof. Paul Becker from the USA who set the tone and spoke on “Thirty years of progress in environmental specimen banking”, stated that the first international workshop on environmental specimen banking was held in Luxemburg in April, 1977, followed quickly with a second workshop in Berlin, Germany in 1978. Since then, there have been 18 workshops and there are now 21 ESBs in the world with 1 in South Africa. He added that over the last 30 years the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) which began environmental specimen banking in 1979 in collaboration with the US EPA has expanded and has incorporated other kinds of specimens as part of US government environmental research and monitoring programs. NIST established the second ESB in 2002 in South Carolina.

The second keynote address chaired by Prof. Shin Takahashi and Masayuki Someya, was delivered by Prof. Andreas Gies who spoke on “The environmental specimen bank within the context of environmental policy in Germany”. He traced the history of environmental specimen banking to 1980 when a new national and European chemical legislation was introduced in Germany and other European countries. He stated that in 1979, Germany began extensive systematic research into the feasibility of ESB and in 1980 the archive for human specimen started, with the test operation phase for an es-BANK initiated in 1981. He continued that since 1985, samples of environmental organisms have been collected from different regions in Germany including limnic (lake overturn due to CO2 eruption) and coastal areas, conurbation areas and mountainous regions. Prof. Gies mentioned that samples collected represent different trophic levels and up to date, 2,500 specimens with 200,000 subsamples are stored in the environmental part of the specimen.

Touching on the topic “Environmental monitoring of POPs/New POPs chemicals in the time capsule program-Biomonitoring and specimen banking at the National Institute for Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan”, the last keynote address speaker Prof. Yasuyuki Shibata stated that collection, banking and pollutant analysis of bioindicator organisms, including bivalves, fishes and birds had been conducted in the Time Capsule Program at NIES as part of efforts to support sound management of chemicals. Prof. Shibata continued that measurement of POPs in bivalves showed elevated levels in several places along the coastline of Japan while their levels in squid liver samples showed the cumulative results of long-range transport of POPs in global scale. He revealed that the Ministry of Environment, Japan is planning to start a large-scale cohort study targeting 100,000 families to clarify possible relationships between child health and pollutants or other environmental impacts. This session was chaired by Prof. Takumi Takasuga and Dr. Kwang-Hyeon Chang. There was a tour of the CMES es-BANK in the afternoon of the second day which was conducted by Prof. Shin Takahashi.

Several oral presentations were made by the invited scientists as well as some scientists from CMES. The enthusiasm of the students could be seen by the questions asked after each presentation. Students from CMES also exhibited posters revealing the findings of their studies. Prof. Atsuhiko Isobe presented the best poster award to Miss Mitsuha Yoshikane. The second, third and fourth best poster awards went to Miss Tomoko Oshihoi, Mr. Kesuke Yamaguchi and Mr. Masayuki Someya, respectively. There was a general discussion on the third day on “The establishment of ESBs in developing countries” which was chaired by Prof. Annamalai Subramanian and rapportuered by Kwadwo Ansong Asante during which many people contributed and gave suggestions on the way forward. The closing remark of the symposium was given by Prof. Satoru Suzuki who urged young scientists to publish in good journals. He reiterated the need for human resource in sustaining the ESBs. He concluded by jokingly saying the half life of ESBs should be forever. The symposium ended with an excursion to the Shimanami sea route and Sakurai lacquer ware museum.