An eclipse over the cell nucleus Functional organization of the cell nucleus Prague, August 9-12,1999

The EMBO workshop 'Functional Organization of the Cell Nucleus' held in Pra gue at the Hotel of the Postgraduate School of Medicine was attended by 110 participants (49 invited speakers and 61 selected participants) from 22 co untries. Such a full range of topics devoted to the cell biology of the nuc leus has not been discussed previously in such an intimate meeting in Europ e. The workshop not only offered an opportunity for junior scientists to be nefit from having an international meeting within Europe and a chance to di scuss their work with internationally recognized experts, but it also offer ed a unique opportunity for interactions among the more established investi gators. The fruits of a number of presentations are gathered together in a Special Issue of the Journal of Structural Biology which appeared in spring 2000. Last but not least, it is worth mentioning that while stepping throu gh a packed scientific program, the participants did find the time to obser ve the solar eclipse just before the lunch break of August 11.