Editorial: An Inaugural Series of Thematic MicroReviews from the BLAST Meeting.

Abstract

Bacteria and Archaea sense and colonize nearly every niche on the planet. To do so, they must respond to environmental cues by employing signal transduction pathways and the appropriate cell response, including movement. The Bacterial Locomotion and Signal Transduction (BLAST) meeting has a long history of highlighting the major mechanisms of microbial locomotion (including flagellar and non-flagellar based systems), chemotaxis and signaling, and more broadly the role of two-component systems and other sensory transduction pathways in bacterial and archaeal physiology. Four MicroReviews dedicated to some of the cutting edge topics in Bacterial and Archaeal signal transduction have been, or will be, published in Molecular Microbiology. One, by Nan and Zusman was published in the July issue (Nan & Zusman, 2016), two (one by Willett and Crosson and one by Desai and Kenney) are in this issue, and the fourth (by Müller, Bretl and Kirby) will be published next spring. We expect to publish additional sets of thematic linked MicroReviews over the coming years, united around a common scientific theme, an organism, or in conjunction with a scientific conference. If you have suggestions for a topic or a meeting that could be highlighted and promoted in this way, please contact our Features Editor (Dr. Melanie Blokesch; melanie.blokesch@epfl.ch). The choice of the BLAST meeting as a focus for this inaugural series of MicroReviews was intentional. As most scientists are by now aware, the business of organizing and promoting meetings, some of dubious merit, is booming. Many of us receive daily solicitations to speak and chair sessions in conferences around the world, with often little regard to whether we actually know anything about the topic in question. The BLAST meeting represents the polar opposite: it is a meeting initiated by and run for working scientists. BLAST has it origins in an initiative spearheaded by Phil Matsumura, Joe Falke, Mike Manson, and Sandy Parkinson over 25 years ago. The non-profit BLAST organization and its board of directors (all working scientists) has, as its primary mission, fostering community amongst researchers in this area and supporting a biennial meeting that provides opportunities for early stage scientists to present their work and engage with the experts in the field. BLAST boasts two keynote talks given by leading experts in the field, but mostly consists of ∼50 short talks and more than 100 posters. The short talks are selected entirely from submitted abstracts, and typically 70% are given by students and postdocs. A highlight of each meeting is the award of two endowed poster prizes, named in memory of two outstanding scientists and BLAST community members, Robert Kadner and Robert Macnab. The BLAST leadership works to keep registration and housing costs low to enable as many graduate students, post-doctoral fellows, and early stage investigators to attend as possible. As a result, this meeting is focused as much (or more) on the future of the field as it is on the accomplishments of established leaders. Previous meetings have been held at various venues in the USA (e.g. Austin, Tucson, New Orleans) and Mexico (Cuernavaca). For further insights into the history of the meeting, and the types of work presented previously, interested readers can consult a relevant review (Hazelbauer, 2012) or any of several recent meeting reports (Alexandre et al., 2011, Josenhans et al., 2014, Prubeta et al., 2015). BLAST XIV will take place January 15-20, 2017 in New Orleans, Louisiana. Registration is open now with a deadline of November 25, 2016 for talks and Dec. 15, 2016 for posters and general registration. More information, including a complete listing of previous meeting-related reviews, can be found at: http://blast.ucsc.edu. Robert Bourret (Chair, BLAST Board of Directors), Karen Ottemann (BLAST Board of Directors) and John D. Helmann (Editor-in-Chief, Molecular Microbiology)