EPHAR 99--Second European Congress of Pharmacology. 3-7 July 1999, Budapest, Hungary

This meeting was chaired by Dr ES Vizi (Chairman of the Hungarian Pharmacological Society) and was attended by approximately 1600 delegates from 62 countries, including the USA, Canada, Israel, Japan and various parts of Europe. The opening ceremony was honored by the plenary lecture of a Nobel prize winner, Dr J Axelrod. The conference consisted of plenary sessions, 57 symposia and poster sessions. Each day the program included seven morning and seven afternoon symposia, simultaneously held, and a large poster section. The symposia focused on the neurotransmitter receptors as targets for the action of new drugs, new trends in the treatment of diabetes, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, psychiatric disorders, cardiac and gastrointestinal diseases and neuronal damage. All abstracts (more than 1200) were published in Fundamental and Clinical Pharmacology (1999) 13(Suppl 1). This year's meeting was substantially larger than the first EPHAR congress held in Milan, Italy, in 1995. It was generally well organized and served to introduce new basic and clinical knowledge in pharmacology.