Structure and function of the cell nucleus

During the Wilhelm Bernhard Workshop, the 18th International Workshop on the Cell Nucleus, held in Pavia last September, the idea was born to ask some of the participants for sending a paper for a special issue on the cell nucleus of the European Journal of Histochemistry, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of its foundation. In the following pages, the contributions of several scientists working in this field have been collected, each article having a special look and attention to a particular aspect of nuclear biology. As it was pointed out during the opening lecture of the Workshop, we had several anniversaries in 2003, which are concerned with the cell nucleus. The 50 years of the double helix paper have been celebrated all over the world, but two others are worth mentioning: the paper by Cogliati and Gautier on the synthesis of osmium ammine for the specific staining of DNA at electron microscopy was published exactly 30 years ago, and 25 years ago Dr. Wilhelm Bernhard died. Bernhard’s contributions to the study of the cell nucleus have been significantly important, and his will to create a meeting where people could freely exchange data and opinions is still living on.