Editorial – Message from the President

[摘要] Another calendar page turns, and another year heads forthe history books. We may have to wait a decade for thenext prime numbered year, but many mathematical andmathematics-related events will occur much sooner. Tobegin with, the year we are entering has been declaredThe Year of Mathematical Biology, and I think this is agood omen. We are all now convinced that mathematics is omnipresent, but this truth has dawned in different ways in different fields. It took over two centuriesfrom its first successful marriage with physics, beforemathematics started to be applied seriously to biological and social systems. The explosive growth, over thelast six or seven decades, of our knowledge of biological mechanisms provides strong motivation to focus onquestions which mathematicians and biologists couldaddress together.