Understanding the evolution of multicellularity; insights from basal metazoans

The recent meeting ‘The evolution of multicellularity: insights from Hydra and other basal metazoans’ held in Bavaria at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing (14–17 September 2009), organised by Thomas Bosch (Kiel) and Thomas Holstein (Heidelberg) and supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), showcased the contribution of ‘lower’ (i.e. non-bilateral) animals to our understanding of genome evolution and the evolution of developmental processes in the animal kingdom