Research supported by the Medical Research Council (MRC) is in part initiated in response to proposals from research workers and in part identified by the Council undertaking regular reviews of its portfolio, to identify areas of particular promise, and to ensure that they are adequately supported. One such review, carried out by a group chaired by Professor J. K. Wing, on research in schizophrenia has been published (Schizophrenia and Allied Conditions Committee, 1987), and in the intervening years has been influential in shaping the Council's policy in the field. The report highlighted the molecular genetics of schizophrenia as an example of the ever-increasing number of areas in which an interdisciplinary approach is essential and in which advances in one field can be exploited in another.