The tenth annual John Merck Fund Summer Institute on the Biology of Developmental Disabilities will be held the week of June 21-25, 2010 at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. This year’s week-long course will focus on important developments in evolutionary biology that have direct implications for how we conceptualize the nature and treatment of developmental disorders. Themes of the course will include development from an evolutionary and societal context, phenotyping, and evolution-based disease and animal models. Participants will benefit from lectures given by internationally renowned scientists and will participate in didactic interactions with the speakers on each methodology described. The institute is geared toward graduate students and postdoctoral fellows and provides small travel stipends, room, and partial board for attendees.