It has been a challenge for us to edit this volume of Endocrinology and Metabo lism: Progress in Research and Clinical Practice. The topic of the pathogenesis of insulin-dependent, type I diabetes mellitus is particularly appropriate for this series, since advances in this area have been made, to a large extent, by applying state-of-the-art laboratory techniques to clinical samples. Over the last several years, a number of lines of evidence have been gathered, suggesting that classic type I diabetes mellitus results from the autoimmune des truction of pancreatic beta-cells in genetically...