5th annual INRA-Meeting MAMMARY GLAND AND MILK

Hereinafter are several reviews and original articles issued from the presentations made at the fifth meeting of an INRA research network bringing together investigators from different departments of the institute in the converging areas of mammary gland biology and milk. This year's programme featured presentations covering a wide range of topics relating to mammary gland differentiation, with emphasis on "omic" approaches of the biology of the tissue, and on milk protein and lipid biosynthesis and secretion. The programme of the last session included several aspects of livestock farming on the functioning of mammary tissue and the milk products biogenesis. Attending the meeting were around 50 participants representing 15 research structures. Much credit should be given to the organizers of the sessions (F. LeProvost and M. Ollivier-Bousquet, INRA Jouy-en-Josas; M. Boutinaud, INRA Rennes) who obtained a successful blend of talks. Another distinguishing feature of the meeting was its diverse range of speakers, including PhD students and young investigators. As in previous years, several participants decided to share their work and concepts further by submitting manuscripts to "Reproduction, Nutrition, Development"; many thanks to them. We do hope to continue reporting on our annual meeting in the future publication ANIMAL, following the merger of "Reproduction, Nutrition, Development" into this new international journal of animal biosciences.
Our thanks are also due to all those contributors and participants who, in our view, made the meeting a success. We are also grateful to the referees for their cooperation, and to all concerned by the editorial process.