The 8th International Symposium on the Biological Role of Plant Llpldstook place atthe Feder- ation of Technical and Scientific Societies, Budapest, Hungary, July 25-28,1988. The host association was the Hungarian Scientific Society for Food Industry (METE). This was the first time that the Symposium was held In an Eastern European socialist country. Previous host cities were Norwich, Karlsruhe, GOteborg, PariS, Gronlngen, Neuchatel, Davis. The addition of Budapest to this distinguished list was the merit of the organizers, the Lipid Chemical Working Group of the Complex Committee of Food Science of the Hungarian Academy of Scien- ces and the Ministry of Agriculture and Food. The Symposium was organized by Professor Peter Blacs, Aladar Blaskovlts, Tlbor Farkas, KatalinGrulz, Tibor Kremmer and Laszlo Vfgh, with the as- sistance of Mrs. Marta Tardy-Lengyel. The activity and the help of the staff of the Central Food Research Institute In Budapest Is high- Iyappreclated. In organizing the Symposium, we started with the Idea that a bridge between Eastern and West- ern scientists should be built In the field of plant lipid research as well. In fact, 180 partiCipants were registered, 50 of them from Czechoslovakia, the German Democratic Republic, Poland, the USSR and Hungary.