Barcelona has hosted the 6 th Transgenic Technology Meeting ( 6th Technology Meeting, TT2005 ); this is the first time a venue in Southern Europe has been used for this event. This congress is a discussion forum on new technologies, developments and projects related to the genetic manipulation of animals and their applications in drug discovery. Organized jointly by the Parc Científic de Barcelona (PCB, Barcelona Science Park) and the National Biotechnology Centre of the CSIC (CNB-CSIC), the congress was held in the auditorium of the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital from 11-13 September and involved approximately 400 scientists and technicians from 27 countries working in fields such as biology, biomedicine and biotechnology.

Held for the first time in 1998 at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden, this congress attracts the interest of scientists from around the world that work in the generation and analysis of transgenic animals, basically as experimental models for the study of possible therapies for human diseases. Most of the animal units and services belonging to European institutions and research centers were represented as were several units from the U.S.A., Australia and Japan, among others.

The 40 conferences that comprised the TT2005 programme include presentations by scientists such as Andray Nagy, at the Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto (Canada), who was awarded the genOway prize for his scientific trajectory in the field of transgenic technologies; Bruce Whitelaw, at the Roslin Institute in Edinburgh (UK), and Junji Takeda, at the University of Osaka (Japan). The congress was coordinated by the researcher Lluís Montoliu, head of the Dept. of Molecular and Cellular Biology at the CNB-CSIC, who chaired the organizing committee, which involved the participation of scientists from several Spanish research centers, such as the Transgenesis Unit at the PCB, the Karolinska Institute and Umea University.