This meeting aimed to accomplish two main goals. First is, to celebrate the 25th Conference, indicating 50 years of history of the European Society for Microcirculation and second is, to involve - as many as possible - scientists working on the field of microcirculation and vascular biology from the Eastern regions of Europe. I believe that both were achieved as indicated by the participation of more than 400 participants, well representing Eastern European countries, but also China, Japan, and Australia.

By now, there is no doubt that understanding the microcirculation of organs and tissues – consisting arterioles, capillaries, venules, lymphatics, blood and lymphatic fluid - is important, not only from physiological point of view to find out how nature solves the difficult problem of supply and collection of substances necessary for tissues to maintain their metabolism, at rest and during increased demand, but it is also crucial to understand the dysfunction of microcirculation in various pathophysiological and diseased conditions, such as hypertension, diabetes, shock, ischemia reperfusion, inflammation, angiogenesis, cancer and metastasis.

To elucidate these aims, special methods, substances and techniques are necessary which are also exciting fields for developments. The great number of high quality, cutting edge scientific presentations and interactions of researchers at the poster boards at the 25th Conference of the European Society for Microcirculation attest that microvascular research, in all its forms - from the architecture of microvascular network through its functional behaviors, to the role of cellular elements of blood and their interaction with microvascular wall - are in the focus of researchers aiming to elucidate mechanisms that can provide understanding of microcirculation and scientific base for treatments of diseases associated with microvascular dysfunction. Thus microcirculation and vascular biology are, and will continue to be exciting and rewarding fields of research for both young investigators and established scientists.

Although, this publication cannot aim to give a cross section of the scientific content of the meeting, it still illustrates the range of exciting topics presented in the fields of Experimental and Clinical microcirculations and that participants represented six continents and most importantly, eight Eastern European countries. Their papers illustrate the research going on in microcirculation from the organ level to the cellular mechanisms or the potential role of progenitor cells. This volume provides a mean for researchers to freely publish their results and ideas, thereby promoting the communication of scientific ideas, which is further facilitated by the fact that this publication will be sent to be indexed in the Current Contents.

I believe that the exciting areas of research sampled here will encourage young researchers to enter a rewarding carrier in science related to microcirculation, lymphatics, blood rheology and vascular biology.