PREFACE
This annual report summarizes the activities of the US-Japan Cooperative Cancer Research Program conducted over the period of April 2000 through March 2001. This is the second year of a sixth 5-year program plan that covers the Japanese fiscal years 1999 through 2004. This volume provides reports on seminars and scientist exchanges carried out under the three program areas of basic science, clinical science, and epidemiology/behavioral science. It also contains the program of the year's large symposium and abstracts of the papers presented at it, along with a summary of the 21st Steering Committee Meeting. Since its inception in May 1974, the US-Japan Cooperative Cancer Research Program has been instrumental in establishing a close working relationship between researchers in the United States and Japan and in providing an important means of exchanging among them up-to-date scientific information and technology. These activities have contributed significantly to the impressive progress being made recently across a spectrum of cancer research fields spanning prevention, diagnosis and treatment in both countries. In 1999, NCI and JSPS renewed the Program for the said period of five Japanese fiscal years. We are confident that the Program will continue to grow and bear fruit, bringing valuable contributions to the cancer research communities of both countries. Application of garnered research and technology advances to cancer control programs will be of immense benefit to our respective societies.

PREFACE
When representatives of the U.S. National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) signed the first five-year agreement establishing the U.S.-Japan Cooperative Cancer Research Program, few might have predicted that this Program would come to represent the most enduring of NCI's bilateral interactions. For nearly thirty years now, the Program has encouraged and facilitated scientific exchange and collaboration between cancer researchers in the United States and Japan and contributed substantially to the phenomenal growth in our understanding of cancer. Over this time, many mere acquaintances have turned into close collaborators and, as importantly, good friends. As the current report demonstrates, the Program remains vibrant with interactions in basic science, clinical science, and epidemiology/behavioral science. The U.S.-Japan Cooperative Cancer Research Program serves as a shining example of the synergy possible when international boundaries are transcended. We in the United States look forward to the continued interaction with our Japanese colleagues. I particularly want to thank those scientists on both sides of the Pacific who serve on the coordinating committee for the Program and those individuals at JSPS and NCI that provide leadership and logistical support for the Program.