METIS will be among the first generation of scientific instruments on theE-ELT. Focusing on highest angular resolution and high spectral resolution,METIS will provide diffraction limited imaging and coronagraphy from 3-14umover an 20"x20" field of view, as well as integral field spectroscopy at R ~100,000 from 2.9-5.3um. In addition, METIS provides medium-resolution (R ~5000) long slit spectroscopy, and polarimetric measurements at N band. Whilethe baseline concept has already been discussed, this paper focuses on thesignificant developments over the past two years in several areas: The sciencecase has been updated to account for recent progress in the main science areascircum-stellar disks and the formation of planets, exoplanet detection andcharacterization, Solar system formation, massive stars and clusters, and starformation in external galaxies. We discuss the developments in the adaptiveoptics (AO) concept for METIS, the telescope interface, and the instrumentmodelling. Last but not least, we provide an overview of our technologydevelopment programs, which ranges from coronagraphic masks, immersed gratings,and cryogenic beam chopper to novel approaches to mirror polishing, backgroundcalibration and cryo-cooling. These developments have further enhanced thedesign and technology readiness of METIS to reliably serve as an earlydiscovery machine on the E-ELT.
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