In October 1995, the 1st Colloquium on Mitochondria and Myopathies in
Halle/Saale was organized in Halle/Saale by the editors of this focused
issue. The meeting took up what might be called an East German
tradition: from 1976 to 1990 Andreas Schmidt organized seven clinically
orientated Colloquia on Myology in Jena, and from 1974 to 1990 a series
of twelve Colloquia on Mitochondria focused on basic research aspects
was arranged by Wolfgang Kunz in Magdeburg. At those meetings, East
Germany was a mediator between East European, West European and American
scientists. In continuation of this tradition, scientists from more than
17 countries working on mitochondria as neurologists, biochemists,
geneticists, or as physiologists came to Halle. The title of the
colloquium indicated the combination of both basic and clinical
mitochondrial research. The most important contributions of this meeting
are now published in this focused issue. We thank all authors for their
patience and cooperation that have made it possible to produce this
unique collection of papers representing current knowledge on detection
of mitochondrial causes of diseases. We especially thank Prof. N.S.
Dhalla for making it possible to publish these contributions together in
this focused issue and also as a hard-cover book.