The Japanese Society for Marine Biotechnology (JSMB) has held on-site annual meetings every year at various cities in Japan, but COVID-19 prevented us from holding on-site meetings in recent three years (2020–2022). Therefore, the 22nd Annual Meeting of Japanese Society for Marine Biotechnology (JSMB 2022) was held online on May 28–29, 2022, thanks to the great efforts of the local organizing committee members:

  • Profs. Michiaki Yamashita (President)

  • Mahiko Abe

  • Tsuyoshi Ikehara

  • Shinya Kawabe

  • Manabu Furushita

  • Hiroyuki Yoshikawa (Executive committee chair)

  • Goro Yoshizaki, JSMB President

Registered participants were 165 in total. The scientific program contained four symposia of oral talks and a total of 74 regular papers with 33 oral and 41 poster presentations including 15 and 35 by students, respectively.

Main topics in the symposia were the following: (1) Shimonoseki is the famous city as “Fugu city” (puffer fish city) due to the largest production of fugu, especially Torafugu (Takifugu rubripes) and various traditional “Fugu” cultures. The aquaculture of Torafugu started in the city in 1933 and has continuously been developed. The symposium was entitled “The modern technology of Torafugu aquaculture and its future aspect (organizer: H. Yoshikawa).” (2) The symposium on “DX revolution and marine biotechnology in the future (organizer: T. Gojobori and M. Hashimoto)” focused on introducing the Marine Open Innovation (MaOI) Project which promotes various fields of marine biotechnological sciences by focusing on “Suruga Bay” which shows that wide variations of biodiversity, environmental conditions, and organisms are influenced by unique geological events and have also helped establish the research core of “Blue Economy.” (3) The symposium on “Front line of research on biological micronutrients and metals (organizer: M. Yamashita)” focused on the advanced progress of analytical methods using ICP-MS for the detection of bio-nanoparticles in a single-cell to elucidate the function of micronutrients and metals in biological functions. (4) The young researcher’s mini-symposium focused on “Marine biotechnology research within the COVID era” (organizer: Y. Maeda and H. Araie) and shared the negative and positive experiences among young researchers and students in various research fields who were affected and influenced by COVID-19 and the post-COVID era.

This special issue JSMB 2022 was proposed and edited by the editorial team organized by the local organizing committee members and Y. Shiraiwa (advisor as Associate Editor-in-Chief of Marine Biotechnology). Eight papers were accepted for publication. Among them, two papers were published early due to editorial reasons (https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-022-10179-z. Mar Biotechnol 24 (6), 2022; https://doi.org/10.1007/s10126-022-10192-2. Mar Biotechnol 25(4), 2023) and six papers are published in this issue as “JSMB Special Issue Articles.”