Dear ASPIRE members,

I am delighted to welcome all of you to our fantastic society of the Asia Pacific Initiative on Reproduction (ASPIRE).

It is a great honor and privilege to take the presidency of ASPIRE to 2012. I have been engaged in this society as a member of Executive board from the foundation.

At first I would like to express sincere appreciation to the people who have contributed for the founding and establishment process of the society so far. It was not an easy task to establish the new society for founding members. Especially I would like to show a deep appreciation to Professor Bruno Lunenfeld for his great contribution as the founder and the Secretary General. I also appreciate Prof. PC Wong, Professor Shin-Yong Moon and other directors who dedicated and successfully constructed the base of the society. I will not forget the big financial support from corporate members and companies.

Now thirty-one years has passed since the reproductive revolution that is the first success of IVF in the UK. Many ramified technologies have been developed and the demand from people has changed. As Professor Edwards proposed in his journal, now it is “the time to Re-Think”. Reading the change and prompt reaction is necessary. People’s demand is changing from “the Quantity” to “the Quality” in our field of reproductive medicine.

There exist two huge societies of reproductive medicine such as ASRM and ESHRE in the world. Many researchers and clinicians have been active in Asian-Pacific region. It is not too much to say that Asia-Pacific is the most noticeable region in the world. Thus we need to develop our society to one of the world societies of reproductive medicine.

There will be specific difficulties compared with other societies. ASPIRE covers a huge region from Far East to Tigris-Euphrates river and involves many countries, holding different culture, people and economy. It would be a hard task for every member to be satisfied, but I can say “the diversity” may produce a power.

The main aim of ASPIRE is to provide futuristic knowledge, education, training and place of free communication each other. And it will play a role of center for accumulation of clinical data in Asia–Pacific region by registries. The endpoint is to facilitate safety and quality of patients care and to save patients who are struggling with infertility.

Let’s make an effort toward the great mission of ASPIRE together.

I would like to encourage all of clinicians, scientists and specialists in the world to be involved to ASPIRE.

Yoshiharu Morimoto, MD, PhD

The President of ASPIRE
CEO & Chairman, IVF JAPAN