The VIIth International Conference on Aspartic Proteinases was held in Banff Alberta Canada
from October 22 to 27 1996. The venue was the Banff Centre in the Canadian Rockies a setting
well known worldwide for the scenic beauty and mountain grandeur. It was perhaps presumptuous
of the organizers to call this the seventh Aspartic Proteinase Conference but it was felt that
the meeting in 1982 organized by Tom Blundell and John Kay was of an international stature
and covered topics sufficiently broad to constitute a conference. Thus there is a
discontinuity in that the Gifu Conference organized by Prof. Kenji Takahashi was the fifth
International Conference on Aspartic Proteinases. Officially there has not been a sixth
Conference and if there is confusion it is the result of my desire to recognize the importance
of the London meeting. Banffhosted 106 scientists from 14 different countries. There were 26
invited speak ers among the 44 oral presentations of the 7 main sessions. In addition there
were 53 con tributed poster presentations that spanned the whole range of interest in aspartic
proteinases.
