Montreal has had a longstanding interest in somatostatin. Two years ago when the final planning began for the International Congress of Endocrinology in Quebec City in July 1984, we seized the opportunity for having a separate Satellite Symposium on somatostatin here in Montreal. We felt that after a decade of uniformly vigorous growth in somatostatin research, the opportune moment had arrived for a review of the most significant past developments and for setting the directions for the future. Knowing the futility of trying to cover every aspect of the burgeoning somatostatin field in a two day scientific program, we opted for a detailed analysis of selected areas which were reasonably mature and of areas of greatest new activity. To attain these objectives, 27 leading international experts actively involved in their fields were invited to present an indepth review of their work in one of five major categories of somatostatin research. Thirty minutes at the end of each session were assigned for a three way, comprehensive discussion of some of the core concepts between the session moderators, the panellists and the audience. The feedback that we have received from the participants leaves little doubt that the meeting was a scientific and social success.This book fulfills our final commitment towards the Meeting which was to record the proceedings in a timely publication. Chapters were received from all but one of the invited speakers and have been carefully edited to ensure uniformity of presentation and nomenclature. Transcripts of the panel discussions required extensive editing to transform the frequently unstructured spoken word into lucid prose. The resultant product, we believe, qualifies as a state of the art monograph on somatostatin research which should excite all scholars in the field and be of value to anyone interested in the biology of neuropeptide systems.