BSCB Newsletter, Spring 2012 Contents Editorial News New Director for the Paterson BSCB Newsletter Cover Image Competition New format for BSCB/BSDB Annual Spring Meeting Schools news: From my school bag Features Leonard 'Sammy' Franks: 1921–2011 Euro-Bioimaging BSCB Science Writing Prize: The logistics of cellular traffic Book reviews The Epigenetics Revolution The Emperor of Maladies – A Biography of Cancer Meeting reports Fungal Development and Pathogenesis ECDO: 19th Euroconference on Apoptosis International Federation of Placenta Associations, 2011 European Muscle Conference 2011 Frontiers in BioImaging CNRS-Jacques Monod Conference: Molecular basis for membrane remodeling and organization The 26th European Cytoskeletal Forum (ECF) Meeting: Actin-Based Motility 41st Society for Neuroscience Meeting 51st Annual Meeting of the American Society for Cell Biology Keystone Symposia: Angiogenesis BSCB PhDs Conferences: More than a chance for an exotic holiday BSCB Summer studentships Investigating a lysosomal pathway of cell death in mammary gland Fascin, Rac1 and cancer metastasis Alternative initiation codons lead to multiple, differentially localised isoforms of an RNA-binding protein What defines the 'alternatively activated' phenotype of mononuclear phagocytes? Investigating the role of the Salvador-Warts-Hippo pathway in tissue architecture The consequences of palindrome induced DNA double-strand break repair on chromosome segregation in Escherichia coli The cover image is the 2nd prize entry in the 2011 BSCB Image Competition. Keiran Boyle's wonderful image shows a cultured hippocampal neuron in the early stages of synaptogenesis. The morphology of the neuron is visualised by staining with an antibody against tubulin. Incoming axons form synapses onto the neuron and are stained for VAMP2 and Synapsin-1.