It is a real pleasure to invite you to participate in the first Fraunhofer Life Science Symposium Leipzig to be held in October, 2006 at BIO CITY LEIPZIG. As you may know, the Fraunhofer Society is one of the big four German research organisations. The Fraunhofer Society founded the “Verbund Life Sciences (VLS)” as one of its seven branches in 2001; which now comprises five institutes with about 150 to 300 employees each. The newest member of the family is the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology, which was founded on 9th April, 2005 at the BioCity Leipzig. The institute is constructing a new large building in 2008/09. The research interests of IZI cover a large variety of interesting fields including research and development of products, processes for cell therapy, regenerative medicine, immunology, stem cell biology and related technical devices, such as bioreactors as well as biosensors, diagnostic kits, and a variety of services providing expertise in GLP and GMP processes.

The Fraunhofer Life Science Symposium Leipzig is concieved an annual meeting for about 200 experts from industrial and academical research institutions. It will address varying topics thereby offering the opportunity to address very recent, rapidly changing or newly developed, specialized fields of research and technological developments. One of the particular aims is to bring together industry and academical researchers for communication, exchange of experiences and to give them the opportunity to express their special interests and needs. We will have scientific posters as well as an industrial exhibition and also special courses aimed at special technologies or to regulatory ethical or political issues.

The symposium is organised by members of the Fraunhofer Institute IZI and of the University of Leipzig. On behalf of the scientific advisory board and all people contributing to organisation and preparation of the meeting I can say that we are delighted to welcome you in the autumn of 2006 at the BIO CITY LEIPZIG.

Yours

Prof. Dr. Frank Emmrich