Eukaryotic gene expression is modulated at many layers of regulatory control. It is becoming apparent that differentiation and development involve the action of numerous regulatory non-protein coding RNAs (ncRNAs). This meeting will focus on the discovery and characterization of ncRNAs in the context of embryogenesis and organismal development, highlighting recent technological advances for high-throughput functional genomics. Meeting Chair: Paul Bertone, European Bioinformatics Institute , Cambridge, UK