The European Network for Breast Development and Cancer (ENBDC) Workshop on ‘Methods in Mammary Gland Development and Cancer’ has grown into the essential, international technical discussion forum for scientists with interests in the normal and neoplastic breast. The fifth ENBDC meeting was held in Weggis, Switzerland in April, 2013, and focussed on emerging, state-of-the-art techniques for the study of non-coding RNA, lineage tracing, tumor heterogeneity, metastasis and metabolism.