Preface During the past two decades, a significant international research exchange has taken place in order to understand the pathobiology of corneal diseases, and to develop more sophisticated treatments. For this purpose, many Japanese cornea specialists have been abroad to the United States, the United Kingdom, etc., to perform collaborative works in basic and clinical cornea research. As a result, many original concepts and thoughts have been produced from Japan, and some of them are now accepted world wide. Further to promote the international exchange of current knowledge and research on corneas in both health and disease, the First Annual Meeting of the Kyoto Cornea Club was held in Kyoto City on December I and 2, 1995. The goal of this meeting was to provide each speaker's updated knowledge that would be of value to all active corneal researchers who are interested in 'state-of-the-art' information from Japan. To achieve this objective fully, 41 selected Japanese cornea specialists registered as active participants in this meeting. James D. Zieske, PhD, from Schepens Eye Research Institute and the Department of Ophthalmology at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, and Tadatsugu Taniguchi, PhD, from the Department of Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Tokyo University, Japan, participated as special guests at this meeting, and both gave plenary lectures. This volume was created to provide each speaker's current opinions on the subjects they presented at this meeting, and also to provide a scientific reference for cornea research. We hope that the first issue will serve as a useful source of current knowledge and insight on Japanese cornea research. We wish to thank all those whose administrative help and/or assistance has made this issue possible; Takakazu Morita of Santen Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd., Machiko Tsujino of PMSI Japan, Ltd., and Kugler Publications. Shigeru Kinoshita and Yuichi Ohashi