Acknowledgements We are indebted to so many national and international colleagues for sending important information for this Report. However, special mention must be made to Dr K K Tan, Managing Director, MycoBiotech Pte., Singapore; Mr W H Chou, President, The Hong Kong Association for Health Care Ltd., Hong Kong; Professor Solomon P Wasser, University of Haifa, Israel; Dr Mike Shirota, President, Maitake Products Ltd., New Jersey, USA; the Ajinomoto Co., Japan; Professor S-T Chang, The Chinese University of Hong Kong; Professor T Ikekawa, Japanese Association for Integrative Medicine, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo; Christopher Hobbs, Institute for Natural Products Research, Santa Cruz, California; Dr Terry Willard, Calgary, Alberta, Canada; Dr E.C. Ooi, Department of Biology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong. We are indebted to Paul Stamets of Fungi Perfecti Research Laboratories, Olympia, Washington, for permitting us to use several photographs from his published books and to Mr Kagawa of Yama-to-Keikoku Publishers Co. Ltd. For allowing us to reproduce many excellent photographs from ISBN4-635-09020-5. The authors wish to thank Cancer Research (UK) for funding this Report (originally this report was commissioned by the Education and Psyclinical Committee (Dr Jean King and Professor Gordon McVie) of the Cancer Research Campaign). We are especially indebted to Elizabeth Clements for her excellent typographical and organisational skills, and remarkable patience during the preparation of the text of this Report. The establishment of the International Journal of Medicinal Mushrooms by Begell House Inc., New York, has been a major innovation and was a considerable source of information in the English language. Finally, we are indebted to Dr Richard Simpson MSP, Parliament Headquarters, Edinburgh and Mr Douglas Armstrong, Stirling Mushrooms, Callander for their encouragement and support at the conceptional stage of this study.