| Title | | 1 |
| Editorial | | 3 |
| Content | | 4 |
| Humour | Paul the Postdoc | 6 |
| News | News | 6 |
| Opinion | Observations of The Owl (6): Take My Genome | 12 |
| ELSO-Special | The European Life Scientist Organization (ELSO) recent history, future prospects | 14 |
| ELSO-Special | How to create a thriving environment for science in Europe | 18 |
| ELSO-Special | The status of women in the European life sciences - grounds for optimism | 20 |
| ELSO-Special | Life science research in Eastern Europe a view from Poland | 24 |
| ELSO-Special | Scientific career development in Europe a helping hand | 25 |
| ELSO-Special | The ELSO congress filling a gap | 26 |
| Analysis | (Not only) PhD Careers/The Starting Independent Researcher Grants of the European Research Council (ERC) | 30 |
| Journal Club | Lausanne/CH T-cell activation against cancer cells | 34 |
| Journal Club | Edinburgh/SCO A key protein in colon cancer development | 36 |
| Humour | One fine day in the lab (2): A "criminal" gene | 37 |
| Biobiz | News | 38 |
| Biobiz | With Roland Kreutzer, Managing Director of Alnylam Europe (Kulmbach, Germany) | 42 |
| Biobiz | News | 44 |
| Biobiz | The Bizarre World of Health Care (3): Counting Peas | 45 |
| Biobiz | News | 46 |
| Products | Product Survey: Microarray Spotters | 47 |
| Methods | Tips and tricks of the trade: Homemade protocol for DNA-extraction | 51 |
| Methods | Bench philosophy (7): Discovering brain activity with Near Infrared Spectroscopy | 52 |
| Books | Francis Crick. Discoverer of the Genetic Code. By Matt Ridley | 54 |
| Books | Seeds - Time Capsules of Life. By Rob Kesseler and Wolfgang Stuppy | 55 |
| Products | New products | 56 |
| Humour | Cartoon: Gene Royale (7) | 62 |
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