In the series of International Protoplast Symposia the Symposium of 1987 was held in Wageningen (The Netherlands). Earlier Symposia took place in Jena (DDR) 1963, Brno (CSSR) 1967, Salamanca (Spain) 1971, Nottingham (UK) 1975, Szeged (Hungary) 1979 and Basel (Switzerland) 1983. This 7th International Protoplast Symposium was organized by K.J. Puite (Secretary), J.J.M. Dons (Treasurer), H.J.Huizing and E.J.L. Hotke-Staal (Local Organizers), the first three persons being scientists, respectively, from the Research Institute Ital, the Institute for horticultural plant breeding IVT and the Foundation for agricultural plant breeding SVP at Wageningen. Scientific Advisers of the Symposium were A. J. Kool, M. Koornneef and F.A. Krens. The International Agricultural Centre lAC served as the Symposium location. The Organizing Committee decided that the scientific programme of the Symposium should be mainly focussed on protoplast technology of relevance to plant breeding. Therefore research on microbial protoplasts and on secondary metabolites was not included. About 250 scientists from 27 different countries were welcomed at the meeting. Speakers at Symposium Sessions and authors of Poster contributions were asked to hand over their manuscripts for the Symposium Proceedings already at the meeting, permit ting early publication of the Proceedings. These manuscripts give the state of the art of the protoplast research and illustrate the progress since the last Protoplast Symposium.