BLAST 1995: International Conference on Bacterial Locomotion and Signal Transduction

The third international conference on Bacterial Locomotion and Signal Transduction (BLAST III) was held January 12-16, 1995, in Austin, Texas. Participants were treated to a diverse array of 56 oral- and 104 poster presentations on current research in bacterial sensing and motility. Overall, this field continues to illustrate the power of combining genetic, biochemical, and physical methods to elucidate the fundamental mechanisms underlying cellular responses to sensory and metabolic stimuli. Together, such diverse approaches are generating what is likely to become the first truly molecular picture of cellular behaviour, in which the macroscopic movements and physiological responses of single bacterial cells can be described in terms of specific chemical and mechanical events within receptors, signalling proteins and motors of increasingly well-understood structure.