The organisers did an excellent job preparing the NIBB55 conference in multiple levels. The invited speakers were certainly chosen wisely and in such a way that all sessions were interesting. In terms of timing the conference was also successful and there were not significant deviations from the schedule. One suggestion would be to offer the opportunity to selected poster talks to span 20 instead of 15 min, especially since the discussion was also included in that time. Perhaps the starting talk of each session could be reduced to 30-35 min instead of 40 so as to provide this extra time. I appreciated and enjoyed the politeness of the hosts and the Japanese students a lot and there were many opportunities of social interaction in the conference. Furthermore it was a very interesting idea to have a panel discussion exclusively from young scientists on topics that students selected. This certainly made this session very current and updated. An additional suggestion would be to perhaps split future panel discussions in two days or to move them to morning sessions so as to stimulate even more discussion. Conclusively it was a very successfully and fruitful meeting which highlighted research opportunities in Japan as being very attractive.