Dear Colleagues,

We are very happy to report that the MDC conference on “Stem Cells in Development and Disease” (Berlin, September 11th to 14th, 2011) was a great success.

We would like to thank all 420 participants, 29 invited speakers, 16 speakers selected from abstracts, four speakers from the industry, the presenters of the 168 posters, the conference office and all the people behind the scene, who helped to make this event enjoyable for everybody.

This MDC conference was aimed at students and researchers interested in understanding the fundamental mechanisms that regulate stem cells during embryonic development and diseases. The conference covered the latest findings in stem cell biology, including genetic and epigenetic mechanisms of reprogramming, maintenance of pluripotency and differentiation. Researchers working in different fields of stem cell biology, including embryonic stem cells, stem cells in adult organs and
cancer stem cells met together here at the MDC conference.

We are in the process to gather all information and further documentation about the conference. Interested persons can find all the relevant information in the Archive. MDC’s science writer Russ Hodge has interviewed several people at the conference, including Rudolf Jaenisch, Anne Brunet, Frank Winnemöller from Miltenyi and three participants. You can find the footage under Interviews with R. Hodge. A photographer has taken a series of photos during the four days of the meeting and participants can view them under Conference Pictures. A collection of documentation related to the presswork at the conference can be found at From the Press. And finally under Further Reading you can find the complete final program for download and additional information soon to come.

The link to a meeting report published by EMBO Reports has now been added to the Archive under Further Reading.

Please, feel free to send us your comments and criticisms regarding the conference and the additional material and further questions and requests.

Kind regards,

The organizing committee

Daniel Besser	Carmen Birchmeier	Walter Birchmeier	Shin-ichi Nishikawa	Francesca Spagnoli	Ulrike Ziebold