Professor Emeritus Dr. Shoichi Kokubun is Director of the Research Centre for Spine and Spinal Cord Disorders at the NHO Sendai Nishitaga Hospital in Sendai, Japan. He was attached to the University of Hong Kong in 1974 and the University of Oxford in 1992. From 1995 to 2006, he was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Tohoku University School of Medicine in Sendai. At his retirement in 2006, he was awarded the title of Professor Emeritus from the Tohoku University for his tremendous contribution to its department.

His major research and clinical activities are paediatric orthopaedics and spine and spinal cord surgery. He is the author of more than 150 original publications in English.

Internationally, the 2^nd Triennial Congress of the International Federation of Paediatric Orthopaedic Societies (IFPOS) was a great success under his presidency in Sendai in 2001. He was National Delegate to SICOT (1999-2005), Chief National Delegate to the Asia Pacific Orthopaedic Association (APOA) (2001-2006), and the Chairman of the Spine Section, APOA (2005-2008). He actively contributed to the Bone and Joint Decade (2000-2010) as a member of its International Steering Committee from 2003 to 2010. He will be President of APOA (2021-2022).

At home, as Congress President, he held the Annual Congress of the Japanese Orthopaedic Association in 2004 and the Annual Meeting of the Japanese Spine Research Society in 2005. In addition, he was President in charge of the management of the Japanese Paediatric Orthopaedic Association from 2003 to 2009 and President of the Japan Orthopaedics and Traumatology Research Foundation, Inc., Tokyo, Japan, from 2007 to 2017. He was given the Award for the Development of the Japanese Orthopaedic Association in 2018.

Professor Emeritus Dr. Shoichi Kokubun has been making every effort to improve orthopaedic surgery, especially spinal surgery, in many Asian countries by visiting there for lectures and demonstration of surgeries or by accepting over 250 fellows to his university department and research centre for their training. Following his outstanding achievements, he has been granted an honorary professorship of the Jilin University in Changchun, China in 1966, an SC Fong Visiting Professorship of the University of Hong Kong in 1996, a Ho-Chi-Minh Medal of Ho-Chi-Minh City, Vietnam in 1999, an honorary membership of the Royal College of Orthopaedic Surgeons of Thailand in 2004, a VK Pillay Lectureship of the University of Singapore in 2006, and an AR Hodgson Memorial Lectureship of the University of Hong Kong in 2011.

In quest to find truths about the human body, even after he retired from the University, he has been active in research, especially on pain from the high tone of the muscle (myogelosis). It has been clarified that the muscle tone is controlled by the muscle-to-muscle and skin-to-muscle reflexes. Based on it, he has established the classification into the K Point group muscles and the independent muscles and the methods of diagnosis, local anaesthetic block, self-treatment and identification of fabrics causing myogelosis.