At the conclusion of the international biotech conference Federico Mayor and Philippe Demarescaux of Biovision declared a new partnership with the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA) to hold alternating year events. Biovision, Europes largest forum for the life sciences, holds an international gathering every two years. The BA would therefore follow up on its event every two years on an alternating schedule. The next Biovision meeting in Lyon is scheduled for April 7-12 2003 and the next BA event will be in Alexandria in the first week of April 2004. Serageldin said that he was delighted with this step that showed the degree of confidence that the organizers of Biovision placed in the fledgling BA effort, and he lauded the previous meetings of Biovision in 1999 and 2001 saying that they set a standard of excellence for such events.