  The ALICE experiment at the CERN LHC has conducted first systematic studies
of heavy-flavour hadron production in pp collisions at sqrt(s) = 7 TeV and in
Pb-Pb collisions at sqrt(s_NN) = 2.76 TeV. In pp collisions the differential
production cross sections of D mesons at mid-rapidity, as well as the cross
sections for electrons and muons from semileptonic heavy-flavour hadron decays
at mid- and forward-rapidity, respectively, have been measured. These data
provide a crucial testing ground for perturbative QCD calculations in the new
LHC energy regime. In Pb-Pb collisions, the nuclear modification factor
R_AA(p_t) has been measured for D mesons and for leptons from heavy-flavour
decays, indicating energy loss of heavy quarks in the partonic medium produced
in Pb-Pb collisions at the LHC. The strong interaction of charm quarks with
this medium might also generate a non-zero elliptic flow of D mesons as first
studies of the azimuthal anisotropy of D^0-meson production suggest.
