The Abeles Symposium in celebration of enzymology was held at Brandeis University on June 30 - Jul 2, 1989. It was attended by ~150 members of the enzymology research community worldwide. The event was organized by Mike Gelb and Perry Frey and was funded in part by the pharmaceutical industry. Bob Abeles' numerous contributions to our understanding of how enzymes function has been enormously beneficial to the mission of relieving human suffering through the development of therapeutics that work by modifying the behavior of enzymes.