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Sense and sensibility in bacteria
Author(s) -
Jenal Urs,
Silversmith Ruth E.,
SogaardAndersen Lotte,
Sockett Liz
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
embo reports
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 4.584
H-Index - 184
eISSN - 1469-3178
pISSN - 1469-221X
DOI - 10.1038/sj.embor.7400459
Subject(s) - sensibility , bacteria , biology , environmental ethics , genetics , political science , philosophy , law
The VIIIth International Conference on Bacterial Locomotion and Sensory Transduction (BLAST) was organized by R. Kadner, I. Kawagishi, P. O‘Neill, J. Falke and J.S. Parkinson and was held in Boca Raton, FL, USA between 16 and 21 January 2005. This was the first BLAST Conference since the untimely death of Professor Robert Macnab of Yale University, one of the founders of the field of bacterial locomotion. We were delighted to inaugurate the first Bob Macnab prizes for poster presentations by young scientists. First prize went to Tatiana Besschetnova (Amherst, MA, USA; second on right), second prize to Collin Dyer (Santa Barbara, CA, USA; second on left), and third prize to Roger Alexander (Atlanta, GA, USA; far left). The winners received their awards from Bob's widow and co‐researcher, May Kihara‐Macnab (New Haven, CT, USA).![][1] Two hundred bacterial researchers gathered in an unseasonably cold Boca Raton for the VIIIth Bacterial Locomotion and Sensory Transduction (BLAST) meeting. They quickly warmed to a programme that revealed several key themes. Bacterial flagellar motility and chemotaxis are relatively well understood, with studies increasingly moving to the structural level with contributions from crystallography and electron microscopy. At the same time, genomic data and new experimental models have allowed significant advances in understanding several types of non‐flagellar gliding motility. The traditional two‐component chemotactic systems are also being studied on a structural level, to determine how phospho‐signalling from tactic receptor teams is achieved. Finally, recent work on alternative regulatory systems shows interactions between motility, synthetic, sensory and pathogenicity genes and confirms that bacterial regulatory pathways comprise a true network with many dynamic interactions between the components. These advances highlight the need for further in‐depth understanding of the principles of bacterial cellular architecture and the determinants of cell polarity. Bacteria are spatially and sensorially highly organized, and this organization is … [1]: /embed/graphic-1.gif