This year’s annual meeting of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Dermatologische Forschung (ADF) took place during March 5–7, 2009 in beautiful Heidelberg ⁄Germany. In keeping with good ADF tradition, the meeting started with a wonderful workshop on ‘Cancer and Aging’ organized by Karsten Mahnke and Mark Berneburg. The workshop featured talks by Hartmut Geiger (Ulm), Anna Wredenberg (Stockholm) and Alexander Burkle (Konstanz). Other highlights of the meeting included the three ‘Quo Vadis’-lectures by Peter Friedl (‘Imaging vs imagination’, Wurzburg ⁄Nijmegen, Holland), Esther von Stebut-Borschitz (Th1, Th2, Th3, mine!, Mainz) and Khusru Asadullah (‘From ADF abstract to medication: how does it work?’, Berlin) as well as the Gunter Goerz lecture (honouring lifetime academic achievements in investigative dermatology) by Thomas A. Luger (‘The skin and the nervous system’, Munster). Finally, we were honoured by the presence of Harald zur Hausen and his keynote lecture on cancer prophylaxis by immunization – opportunities and possibilities. In addition to 12 ADF members receiving poster or travel awards, the ADF rewarded the following scientists with one of her five prestigious awards (honouring outstanding research achievements within the ADF community): Stefan Martin (Freiburg) obtained the Paul Langerhans-Award (honouring distinguished ADF investigators, sponsor: BiogenIdec) for his important work on the immunologic pathomechanisms of inflammatory skin diseases with a focus on chemical induced allergic contact dermatitis. Verena Kupas (Munster) and Sabine Ring (Heidelberg) received the ECARF ⁄ADF-Award in Allergy Research (sponsor: European Centre for Allergy Research Foundation, Berlin) for their work on regulatory T cells and their role in skin inflammation. The working group of Jurgen Eberle (Berlin) was honoured with the ADF Oncology-Award for his contribution to efficient and selective killing of melanoma cells by new oncolytic adenoviral vectors with doxycycline-inducible expression of CD95L ⁄FasL and Christoffer Gebhardt (Heidelberg) received the Egon Macher-Award (which is the ADF young investigator prize, sponsor: 3M) for his work on RAGE signalling and its role in inflammation and tumor development. The ADF also awarded a research fellowship grant, which went to Amanda Buchau (Munchen). The research fellowship grant, which is cofunded by the ADF and the German Society of Dermatology (DDG), allows young scientists at the beginning of their career to train in experimental dermatology. The ADF gratefully acknowledges the efforts of the local organizing team led by Alexander Enk and Karsten Mahnke (Heidelberg), which made this year’s ADF meeting a great success and lots of fun. Finally, we would like to draw your attention to the next ADF meeting on February 18–20, 2010, which will take place in Lubeck! Moreover, the ADF board of directors recognizes with gratitude the support of the ADF corporate sponsors. For more details, please have a look on the ADF-website on http://www.adf-online.de.