Animal models have been playing an important role in disease research. They have advanced our knowledge about the genetics, development, environmental effects, and in turn, the mechanism of diseases. A recent review has pointed out that one-third of the high-impact animal research published in seven leading journals has been through clinical trial, and one-tenth of these studies have succeeded and been applied to disease treatment (Hackam and Redelmeier, 2006; van der Worp et al., 2010). With the completion of the whole genome sequencing of various organisms, including human and model organisms such as yeast, fly, worm, and mouse, current focus is on the functional characterization of these genomes. Researchers hope to reveal the mechanism of more diseases, especially the multi-factorial diseases, in a wide scale and with high efficiency so as to establish effective preventions and interventions. Efforts have been invested in two important aspects: large-scale mutagenesis and large-scale phenotypic studies. This meeting 'Disease and Animal Research' was held in Shanghai from June 30th to July 2nd in 2010. Hosted by the Institute of Developmental Biology and Molecular Medicine (IDM), Fudan University, China, this meeting aimed at providing a chance for international scholars to exchange recent progress in the field of disease and animal research, form productive collaborations, and promote future development.