The 93rd Annual Meeting of the American Association of Cancer Research was held in San Francisco, CA, USA. It was one of the largest conferences of its kind covering all aspects of cancer research with ∼ 6000 scientific presentations over a period of 5 days. The following meeting highlights are focused on a few selected developments in the field of tumour-induced angiogenesis, attempting a synthesis between educational sessions and original scientific presentations. Two important shifts in paradigms were reported at that meeting involving the biology of tumour-induced angiogenesis. Firstly, the generation of new blood vessels was demonstrated to dramatically depend on bone marrow-derived circulating endothelial precursor cells, thereby supplementing existing concepts of vessel generation by migration and proliferation of pre-existing mature endothelial cells. Secondly, the genetic stability of endothelial cells circumventing resistance to antiangiogenic therapy was challenged by the observation of resista...