We will discuss our efforts towards reaching ultra-cold temperatures
with trapped molecules where molecular beams carrying both cold
molecules and atoms have been decelerated and trapped in a permanent
magnetic trap. I will present our plans and prospects of further cooling
via evaporation or sympathetic collisions. In the second part of my talk
we will focus on cold collisions with cold molecular partners that have
been magnetically merged in order to reach collisions temperatures of
~10 mK. I will show that quantum phenomena dominate collisions in this
cold regime and discuss the importance of molecular degrees of freedom
on cold reactions.