Technical Abstract: Guayule, in recent years, has moved closer to commercialization as an alternative source of natural rubber, latex, and resin. This symposium highlighted some of the latest information on guayule research including agronomics, plant breeding, processing, and rubber biosynthesis. Dr. Francis Nakayama, who officially retired after 43 years of U.S. government service with the USDA-Agricultural Research Service in January 2003, spent much of his career working on guayule production, processing, and product utilization. This symposium also attempted to honor some of the achievements during his career. There have been a number of efforts in commercialization of guayule over the period of Dr. Nakayama's career and this symposium provided an opportunity to assess the current knowledge base. These past attempts at commercialization have been to make bulk rubber for tires, beginning in the early 1900s. The present attempt is to produce high-value medical products with the hypoallergenic latex, unique to guayule. Much of Dr. Nakayama's research has focused on coproducts development of guayule for added value. He substantiated that the resins produced by guayule have termite resistance properties that could be used in building materials, such as particleboard made from the bagasse residue after latex extraction. This work is described in his contribution "Guayule future development." The first five articles in this issue are from invited speakers at the symposium. These authors have the most state-of-the-art knowledge in the respective areas. Most of the remaining articles in this issue were also presented at this AAIC annual meeting, but as part of the regular Guayule and Natural Rubber Division Session, held the following day.