The Kern Lipid Conference was established in 1977 by Dr. Fred Kern, Jr., who lead the meeting through its first twenty years. Now in its 45th year, the KLC meets every summer in Vail, Colorado. Attendance is limited to approximately 120 participants. The conference aims to - promote science that relates to the broad areas of lipid, cholesterol, bile acid, and lipoprotein metabolism and the pathobiologies associated with disorders of lipid metabolism - consistently enroll a significant proportion of scientists at the level of assistant professor or below in career development to foster exchange with established scientists - provide an open forum where scientists from both academia and industry meet and discuss basic and translational science related to lipid metabolism and to emerging treatment paradigms for lipid disorders - provide a unique meeting format in which formal presentations and open discussions of each topic take up equal amounts of time