Timeline
Japanese research into fluorine chemistry began more than 60 years ago in 1952 at Nagoya Industrial Laboratory (now part of the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology).
At the time, a Halogen Conference existed as part of The Society of Synthetic Organic Chemistry, Japan, and the conference hosted discussions about halogen chemistry. The Fluorine Chemistry Conference was established in 1972, and the first Fluorine Chemistry Discussions was held in 1975.
Later, the late Professor Nobuo Ishikawa of the Tokyo Institute of Technology held a joint symposium between Japan and the former Soviet Union in 1979, and that event contributed to international exchange over several sessions in subsequent years.
In 1990, the late Professor Nobuatsu Watanabe of Kyoto University took the lead in establishing the 155th Committee of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, spurring a series of academic exchanges among industry, academic, and government concerning fluorine chemistry.
The committee also spurred international academic exchange, for example by regularly hosting Japanese-French seminars and Japanese-Chinese-South Korean seminars.
The late Yoshiro Kobayashi of the Tokyo University of Pharmacy and Life Sciences made a significant contribution to the development of the fluorine drug discovery.
In this way, a variety of academic activities related to Japanese fluorine chemistry were pursued individually before The Society of Fluorine Chemistry, Japan, was established in 2008 to facilitate a more active embrace of social needs related to fluorine science and technology, marking a new beginning in the field. In 2019, the Japanese Society for Fluorine Chemistry has been reorganized as a general incorporated association (non-profit type) for further development.
