Based on a conference that was held in Hamburg, Germany in July 1994 as a satellite meeting of the 3rd European Endocrinology Conference, the scope of this volume has been expanded to include not only the topics presented at the conference, but also reviews of other aspects of the prorenin-renin-angiotensin system biology. Section A contains current reviews on general aspects of reproductive biology and endocrinology. Section B deals with recent advances in the understanding of the biology of the renin-angiotensin system. The papers presented by the invited participants at the conference and those selected from submitted abstracts are grouped in Section C.