Taken from the preface of this book

This book is intended to summarize current status in the field of glycoscience and future perspectives. This book contains summaries of the progress made by over 150 Japanese glycoscientists. In 2004, the Japan Consortium for Glycoscience and Glycotechnology (JCGG) was established in order to exchange scientific information among glycoscientists as well as other fields of research in academia, research institutes and companies in Japan. We would like to take this opportunity to explain the workings of the JCGG, a non-profit organization that is not officially supported by the Japanese government. In this operation, scientists took the initiative of creating and supporting the consortium by using their own indirect governmental research grants as well as support from personal donations from Japanese and foreign glycoscientists, industries and public foundations.

This year the JCGG published an extensive, detailed report analogous to a “white paper” entitled “Glycoscience creating the future: A roadmap in Japan” which is not commercially available and distributed only within the Japanese glycocommunity. We would like very much to have opportunity for people worldwide to read this report and, to allow this, we decided to publish it in English by Springer.

This book lists over 250 topics in glycoscience which were contributed by Japanese glycoscientists who originally developed his/her own research program in Japan. These manuscripts were peer-reviewed by editors, several distinguished senior persons in Japan and foreign countries.

The book encompasses several items such as 1) Significance of the field of glycoscience and its current status 2) Impact on other fields of research 3) Significance as fundamental research 4) Possible applications for industry and medicine, if any and 5) Future perspectives. We sincerely hope that this book will facilitate and motivate scientists as well as the lay-public who are interested in this or may be interested in the future.

We gratefully acknowledge all of the persons who contributed to this book and who took the time to review this proposal, despite their busy schedules and special thanks are due to Mr. Keiichi Yoshida, the former secretary general of the JCGG, Ms. Fumi Ohta, the former technical assistant at the Systems Glycobiology Group at RIKEN, Mrs. Rhoko Fujikawa, science writer, Mr. Takeshi Masuda, the MDO company for their skillful assistance and help in arranging the material for this book. We also thank editorial staff members at Springer, Dr. Sue Lee, Ms. Coral Zhou, Ms Sivachndran Ravanan and Mr. Padmanaba.

On behalf of all of the editors.
Naoyuki Taniguchi MD., PhD.
The former President of JCGG, Professor Emeritus Osaka University and
Director and Group Head of Glyco-Oncology and Medical Biochemistry, Research Center,
Osaka International Cancer Institute