The 7th Conference on Circulating Nucleic Acids in Plasma and Serum (CNAPS VII) was held in “La Paz” Hospital of Madrid on 24-25 October, 2011. More than 170 researchers from about 30 countries met in Madrid to present and discuss their new results, advances and the new challenges related to the origin, role and clinical utility of cell-free nucleic acids in humans.

The conference was structured into seven thematic areas:

.....· What is new about the origin of CNAPS?
.....· The nature of CNAPS
.....· CNAPS as clinical tools
.....· The biologic role of CNAPS
.....· Research applications using CNAPS
.....· Technical update

With this outline, the researchers made an updated overview on the main aspects of the cell-free nucleic acids: Transfer of functional cell-free nucleic acids between cells, microparticles as vehicles for cell-free nucleic acids, relationship between CNAPS and Evolution, role of CNAPS in tumor malignancies, utility of CNAPS in the noninvasive fetal genomic analysis, etc. Also, many new techniques were described, with a marked interest on the next-generation sequencing. In addition, there was a special joint session EuroGentest Network-CNAPS researchers.

The abstracts of the conference have been published in a supplement of the Journal of Nucleic Acids Investigation.

In addition, many of the lectures and free communications will be selected to be published as papers in a supplement in Expert Opinion on Biological Therapy (2012).