The small scientific workshop From Science to Therapeutics: The Best Way Forward drew 150 researchers to San Francisco 15-17 April 2013, and united a hodgepodge of topics under the theme of how to move scientific discoveries from the lab bench to the clinic. Multifactorial diseases such as AD likely "cannot be conquered by a single approach or drug," said Lennart Mucke of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease, San Francisco, who co-organized the meeting with Pierluigi Nicotera of the German Center for Neurodegenerative Disease. Over the coming days, read Esther Landhuis' highlights, which cover new functions for BACE, novel therapeutic approaches centered around ubiquitination, acetylation, stress response pathways, and a longevity gene. [Image courtesy of Lennart Mucke.]