Dear Colleagues,

On behalf of the European Society for Comparative Endocrinology (ESCE) it is a great pleasure to invite you to the 26^th Conference of European Comparative Endocrinologists (CECE) 2012. The CECE 2012 will be held from 21-25 August 2012 at the University of Zurich, Irchel Campus.

It is an extraordinary privilege for the Organising Committee to announce that The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine 2011 Laureate, Professor Jules A. Hoffmann, will give the Honorary Plenary Lecture "The antimicrobial defense of Drosophila: a paradigm for innate immunity" at the Opening Ceremony on Tuesday, 21 August 2012, 5.00 p.m. His pioneering advances in immunology will broaden our horizons towards potential interactions between the endocrine and immune systems and his phylogenetic discoveries will give new impulses to comparative research in general.

Welcome to Zurich!
Elisabeth Eppler, Conference President