Franz Gross died suddenly during preparations for the meeting. He would have taken great pleasure in summarizing in this preface the aims and results of a gathering which so clearly bore his imprint as Chairman of the Scientific Program Committee. His sudden passing away is deeply regretted by all of us: organizers, speakers and participants. We greatly respect him for his exceptional abilities, his impact on science and his qualities as a human being. He provided the impulse for a well balanced and topical scientific program. We therefore dedicate the proceedings of this symposium to his memory. Munich was the fifth in a traditional line of international meetings of pharmaceutical physicians held at three-year intervals, starting in London in 1972 ('International Aspects of Drug Evaluation and Usage'), and followed by Florence in 1975 (, Rationality of Drug Development'), Brussels in 1978 (, Pharmaceutical Medicine - the Future') and Paris in 1981 ('Drug Safety -;- Progress and Controversies'). This 5th meeting discussed improvements in drug development and application and examined the impact of regulatory activities.

Progress in basic research has made it necessary to redetermine the possibility of classic endocrine therapy for the treatment of patients with breast cancer. Exemplary, close cooperation between biochemis try and animal and clinical research led to a truly interdisciplinary and international exchange of ideas and experience at a symposium held in autumn 1978 in Heidelberg. We owe our thanks to ICI-Pharma for the kind support of this sym posIUm. The participation of Charles Huggins in the meeting as honorary chairman signified to all participants the meaning of this joint endeavour. It was the same Charles Huggins who through experimental work laid the foundation stone for endocrine ther apy of prostate and breast cancer, and who applied his findings clinically. Thousands of patients owe to him relief from their suffering. He contributed greatly to the attempt to find and stabilize the endocrine therapy for breast cancer, for which we thank him sincerely. We hope that the following contributions will similarly serve the well-being of our patients."

The studies described in this book were carried out in the Mo lecular Neurobiology Group, Department of Neurology, at the University of Diisseldorf, Germany. The main goal of this work was to gain an understanding of the mechanisms responsible for neuronal regeneration failure in the adult mammalian central nervous system and to learn how they can be influenced. Ap proaches focused on (a) the identification of the extrinsic cellular and/or molecular factors that are responsible for regeneration failure in the adult CNS and (b) the improvement of axonal regeneration by changing the local environment of the lesioned axons. The stereotactically transected postcommissural fornix was used as a lesion and implantation model. This volume of Advances in Anatomy, Embryology and Cell Biology presents these particular studies on the degeneration and regeneration of the postcommissural fornix performed over the past several years. It is hoped that this basic experimental research will lead to the development of reparative and neuroprotective strategies useful in the treatment of both injury to the CNS and neurode generative diseases. This study would not have been possible without the help of several people. I thank Prof. H. W. Miiller, head of the Molecular Neurobiology Laboratory, for his support and for his critical comments on the manuscript; Dr. G. Wunderlich, Dr. K. Lips, and S. Hermanns for their fruitful collaboration; Prof. M. Schwab for the generous gift ofIN1 antibodies; Prof. H. -G. Hartwig and G."