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1)Department of Hematology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan2)Laboratory for the development of therapeutics against MPN, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan3)Department of Advanced Hematology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine, Tokyo, Japan　There are fateful encounters that may be turning points in your life. I regard my retirement as a professor to be an excellent opportunity to look back on my life. I have been blessed with encounters that would never come again, for instance, when I decided to become a physician, then a hematologist, when I was appointed a professor, and when I selected a new path after a mandatory retirement age. Although my life was chosen by myself, it is true that it went in a completely different direction I had vaguely imagined or expected in the past. However, I have no regrets at all. Looking back on my life, it is totally attributed to wonderful encounters with many people, inspiration from them, and their support in various places. Now that I have completed my 16-year-plus responsibility as a professor and reached the retirement age with no troubles, I am just grateful to all the people who supported me. There are many things I experienced as a professor, but what struck me most is “people are the treasure.” I cite here a famous word of a great commander Shingen Takeda, “The people are your castle, your stone walls, your moat. We show compassion for our allies, and vengeance for our enemies,” which shows us “the importance of people.” The word “Jin,” the motto of Juntendo University, can help us to take the first step (“Jin” means “I live surrounded by other people” and “thoughtful consideration to others, affection for others.”)408Corresponding author: Norio KomatsuDepartment of Hematology, Juntendo University Graduate School of Medicine2-1-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, 113-8421, JapanTEL: +81-3-5802-1069　FAX: +81-3-3813-0841　E-mail: komatsun@juntendo.ac.jp352nd Triannual Meeting of the Juntendo Medical Society “Farewell Lectures of Retiring Professors” 〔Held on Mar 31, 2021〕〔Received　Jul. 6, 2021〕〔Accepted　Jul. 12, 2021〕J-STAGE Advance published date: Oct. 26, 2021Copyright © 2021 The Juntendo Medical Society. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original source is properly credited. doi: 10.14789/jmj.JMJ21-0016-OTJuntendo Medical Journal2021. 67(5), 408-413Special ReviewsLooking Back on My Life of 40 Years as an Academic PersonThere are fateful encounters that may be turning points in our life. I would like to look back on my life of 40 years as an academic person and describe some of the turning points in my university life.What made me a hematologistThe hematology department is where I started my career as a trainee physician at first. Internal medicine is the field in which I was the least inter-ested when I was a medical student. Honestly speaking, I could not understand the field because it was too difficult. However, as a primary care physician, I directly saw patients who have an Key words: once-in-a-lifetime-chance, UT-7, physician scientist, calreticulin, Jinintractable blood cancer, such as acute leukemia and malignant lymphoma, and endure excruciating treatment; consequently, I considered that the posture of a physician to try to understand the feel-ings of patients was my ideal physician image and I decided to become a hematologist. I think that the choice was not wrong.I became addicted to basic researchImmediately after I joined the medical office, chief professor Dr. Yasusada Miura advised me to conduct basic research on megakaryocytopoiesis. I felt as if he knew my laziness well because I was not interested in basic research at all. It was the first step to elucidate the mystery of megakaryocy-PrefaceNorio KOMATSU1, 2, 3)