The Second Edinburgh International Workshop was held in September, 1984 and took as its topic the coordinated regulation of gene expression. The intention of this series of workshops is to promote exchange of ideas and data between scientists and clinicians whose interests span molecular and cell biology, development and differentiation, oncology, and genetic and developmental pathologies. It is hoped that such interdisciplinary discussions may give rise to fruitful insights. The meetings are structured to give ample time for discussion after each formal presentation and culminate in a session of general discussion which is reported at the end of the volume of proceedings. We are very grateful to the participants, all of whom participated in the discussion and whose contributions were essential to the success of the meeting. Novel ideas were often put forward and explored thoroughly from different angles. We normally expect to achieve quite rapid publication of the proceedings of the meeting and are grateful to authors who produced typescripts of their contributions expeditiously, but, as may sometimes be the case with multi-author works, some contributors had difficulty in meeting schedules for submitting manuscripts or corrections of the text of the discussion, and in one case we have been unable to publish any record of the contribution. Our committment to the publication of the discussion, allowing participants to make corrections to the transcript of the session, such as insertion of references and clarification of oral contributions, has also imposed some delay.