Mouse genetics meets molecular biology at Cold Spring Harbor. Mouse Molecular Genetics sponsored by the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, NY, USA, August 29-September 2, 1990.

As stated earlier, the digestion of roughly 100 short talks delivered within a few days and containing very condensed information is, even for experts, quite demanding. Sometimes one felt in danger of becoming "psyched out" by all the experiments described; perhaps smaller group discussions dealing with experiments that have not worked, as well as the elimination of redundancies in the presentations, would have added to the flavor of the meeting. But what is the "take home message" from the 1990 CSH Mouse Meeting? With all the described breakthroughs, has mouse molecular genetics and development arrived at a turning point? I am inclined to answer this question with a "yes" on the basis of the following considerations: The elegant studies of development in Drosophila and Caenorhabditis elegans were made possible by the power of genetics with the use of developmental mutations. These studies taught us that the sequential activation of a hierarchy of regulatory genes dictates the temporal and spatial patterns of expression of proteins that define cell phenotypes and the body plan, and thereby control development. With the identification of important regulatory genes responsible for many classical as well as experimentally induced mouse mutations, in conjunction with traditional transgenic studies and the power of deleting and altering genes via ES cell chimeras, the study of mouse development has now gained an important new dimension. It is feasible that the consequences of subtle but precise genetic changes, such as the modification of regulatory elements or DNA-binding domains, can be studied in the whole organism by use of ES cells.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)