The first Wiggers-Bernard Conference on shock, sepsis and organ failure, named after two outstanding scientists in shock research and experimental medicine, took an interdisciplinary approach to addressing three questions: whether multi-organ failure is a sequence of organ failures or a systematic disease; whether cellular events in trauma and sepsis are due to suppression, activation or both; and whether LPS or sepsis are necessary as mediators of organ failure. The topics discussed included humoral and cellular activation mechanisms, immuno-suppression, metabolic responses, and the source and action of endotoxin (including the release of cytokines, oxygen radicals and proteinases).