The diagnosis, treatment and prevention of diseases found different opportunities for the development of new agents in the new techniques of molecular biology. The goal of this international symposium, organized by the Esteve Foundation on October 7-10, 1990 in Majorca, was to ascertain how the potential of modern biomedical science could be extrapolated into reality to improve patients’ health. The interdisciplinary character of these meetings was confirmed by the presence of clinical pharmacologists, physicists or investigators of this new biology. One of the attendants, Marcus M. Reidenberg from the Department of Pharmacology and Medicine of the Faculty of Medicine of the Cornell University of New York, introduced these events and edited volume number 4 of the Esteve Foundation Symposia series, published by Elsevier Science.