The 5th NIBB-EMBL joint meeting, entitled “Cell and Developmental Biology”, was held in Okazaki on May 24- 26, 2007. The scientific sessions were organized in consideration of the recent trend of understanding macro developmental phenomena at the micro/single cell level. During the two years since the 1st NIBB-EMBL joint meeting, “Developmental Biology”, we have gradually realized the importance of understanding complex developmental processes as an integration of individual cell behaviors. During this most recent joint meeting, the cytoskeltal rearrangement underlying cellular morphogenesis and movement, the cellular mechanism of cell polarity, cell-to-cell interaction in organogenesis, and other related topics were discussed in a variety of developmental contexts. NIBB and EMBL share a common interest in these topics and it is hoped that further international collaboration between our institutions will result from 2007’s fruitful and stimulating meeting.

Hoping to catch the big wave of genomics of many experimental organisms now sweeping the worldwide scientific community, we also aimed in this meeting to explore the possibilities of genome-wide biology unveiling a “Gene Regulatory Network”(GNR) of development. GRN is a key to understanding not only the structure of gene regulatory pathways but also the evolutional capacity that generates biodiversity. Several speakers covered this topic and presented insightful talks, generating a great deal of interest in the future of “Systems Biology”among those attending.