Book excerpt: In 1996, an international symposium entitled "Future Perspectives in Gastroenterology" was held in the city of Leipzig, State of Saxony, Germany. Leading scientists in diverse fields of gastroenterology presented their recent findings and undertook the propitious risk of speculating about future directions. Thanks once again to the generous support of the Falk Foundation, it was possible to revisit a symposium with the same title, but held this time in the beautiful, rebuilt city of Dresden in Saxony. This book contains the proceedings of the Falk Symposium No. 161 on "Future Perspectives in Gastroenterology", held October 11–12, 2007. It presents many innovative themes as well as "new faces" and offers a rich opportunity to learn firsthand about the latest scientific discoveries in the broad field of gastroenterology. Several of these novel developments are probably well on their way to being implemented in clinical practice.