The Great Wall Symposium.

Abstract

The third Great Wall Symposium recently held in Paris, France, featured the latest advances in the field of peptidoglycan metabolism. We hosted two Keynote lectures by Kevin D. Young and Alexander Tomasz, as well as 24 speakers in six different sessions. The meeting attracted a great deal of interest from the scientific community, which has expanded dramatically in the last decade. The remerged interest in the field of peptidoglycan research occurred around the year 2000 with two important discoveries: (1) the characterization of bacterial cytoskeleton and their role in cell wall synthesis, and (2) the discovery of innate immune receptors in Drosophila (through peptidoglycan recognition proteins) and in mammals (through the Nod proteins) involved in sensing of peptidoglycan. As a consequence of the rediscovered interest in peptidoglycan by microbiologists, cell biologists, and immunologists, a first meeting exclusively focused on peptidoglycan research was organized in Baeza, Spain, October 4–6, 2010. This first small meeting answered the real need for a discussion platform of the peptidoglycan community, and a second meeting followed a year later in Lisbon, Portugal, September 28–30, 2011. To avoid overlapping with the Bacterial Cell Surface Gordon Conference, it was decided that this meeting would be organized every two years alternating with the Gordon Conference. In addition, given the fact that the Gordon conference is organized in the United States, the scientific community felt that this meeting should stay in Europe to favor diversity and opportunity for young scientists to meet with senior members of the field. The number of participants (128 in total) increased again with regard to the first and second meeting and was limited by the venue capacity. The meeting has rapidly become a reference in the field and a collective decision was made to pursue the adventure in two years in Florence, Italy, at the Villa Finaly on September 21–24, 2015. Microbial Drug Resistance has been an active promoter of the advances that have been made in the field of peptidoglycan metabolism during the last two decades, first with a special issue of the last Cell Wall meeting before the Great Wall Symposium era that took place at Lago de Garda, Italy, in 1995. Following this tradition, Alexander Tomasz has organized a special issue on the science presented at the Great Wall Symposium. A first special issue was published in June 2012 on the work presented at the second symposium. To maintain the visibility of the field, a second special issue on the third meeting is presented in this special issue, creating a great opportunity for young scientists to present their work to the scientific community.