Nestled between the Japanese islands of Honshu and Shikoku in the Seto Inland Sea lies Awaji Island ( Awaji-shima). Thought by some to be the oldest settled area in Japan, the island found new life in January 2012 as the birthplace of the first IFReC-SIgN Winter School on Advanced Immunology, jointly organized by research institutes in Japan and Singapore. © 2012 Nature America, Inc. All rights reserved.