Some of the most exciting areas in biology today are at the interface between cell and developmental biology. One challenge is to understand how cells integrate signaling events, cell adhesion and cytoskeletal regulation to shape the body plan. In the Fall of 2009, the ASCB, RIKEN and the JSCB will join to sponsor this meeting in historic Kyoto in Japan. The meeting will allow graduate students and postdocs to interact with leaders in the field from around the world in an intimate setting. Thirty-six platform talks, fifteen of which will be chosen from the abstracts, will complement afternoon poster sessions. Topics (subject to change) will include Cell Junction Formation and Dynamics, Specialized Cell Junctions, Signaling via Cell Contacts, Contact-Dependent Regulation of Cell Polarity and Shape, Epithelial Remodeling, Cell Migration for Morphogenesis, and Neural Morphogenesis and Axon Recognition.