  Recent developments on approaches to the quark lepton mass problem are
reviewed. In particular we discuss dynamical calculations of the top quark mass
at (a) the infrared quasifixed point of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard
Model renormalisation group equations, and (b) a strongly first order critical
point of the Standard Model effective potential. The phenomenology of symmetric
mass matrix ans\"{a}tze with texture zeros at the unification scale is also
considered. The underlying chiral symmetry presumed responsible for the fermion
mass hierarchy is discussed, with particular reference to superstring based
models.
