An International Symposium on Integrative Molecular Cancer Epidemiology took place in Lyon, France, on 3–5 July 2008. The Symposium focused on aetiological and mechanistic aspects of molecular and genetic cancer epidemiology research and was divided into the following three sections:

(1) Molecular epidemiology—application of novel molecular markers to cancer epidemiology.

(2) Genomic epidemiology in the era of whole genome scan.

(3) Integrative molecular epidemiology: visions for the future.

Participants included epidemiologists, geneticists, biochemical and molecular biologists, pharmacologists, pathologists and all researchers interested in this field. The Symposium provided a complete and clear overview of the present and future programmes in molecular cancer epidemiology. It also served to encourage international scientific collaboration between investigators working in this specific research field, and to stimulate transdisciplinary research with experts of other research areas. Highlights of each of the scientific presentations are summarised below.