The 45th meeting of the Pancreas Club was held on 5 and 6 May 2011 at the Robert H. Lurie Medical Research Center in Chicago, IL. An outstanding program of 47 oral presentations (Table 1) and 137 poster presentations was chosen from a record number of submitted abstracts. Ten posters each day were chosen for presentation as part of the Professor Rounds portion of the formal poster viewing program. Summaries of the oral presentations are provided; published work is referenced. Full abstracts are available on the Pancreas Club website: http://pancreasclub.com.