Clostridium
International Workshops on the Regulation of Metabolism, Genetics and Development of the Solvent- and Acid-forming Clostridia.
CLOSTRIDIUM: A HISTORY
Adapted from Wilf Mitchell, who compiled the information
below for the 2004 meeting.
THE BEGINNING
Research into the field of Solvent and Acid-forming
Clostridia was stimulated following the fuel crisis of the early 1970's,
a logical result of the realization of the fickle nature of oil as a chemical
feedstock. The acetone-butanol fermentation of Clostridium
acetobutylicum, pioneered by Chaim Weizmann,
stood out as an example of the industrial success of biological fermentations,
and the 1980's saw a concerted effort to improve understanding of the
physiology of this and related bacteria. In 1990, researchers came together
for the first time at a specialist meeting organised by Nigel Minton,
Palmer Rogers and David Woods. It is their legacy that this meeting spawned
the "Clostridium" series of meetings.
1990 - CLOSTRIDIUM I
The first Clostridium meeting was held at the Red Lion Inn in Salisbury, England, and was hosted by Nigel Minton based at the nearby Centre for Applied Microbiology and Research at Porton Down.
Although the vast majority of contributions described work on
C. acetobutylicum, with emphasis on physiology
and enzymology, cloning of genes and the development of techniques for
genetic manipulation, a small number of presentations focussed on other
organisms including C. perfringens.
At the end of the meeting, a decision was taken to hold separate meetings
devoted to clostridia of biotechnological and clinical importance, to
prevent the meetings from becoming too large. The biotechnological group
has met every two years since, and has succeeded in maintaining an informal
atmosphere which has done much to foster free exchange of information
and the establishment of fruitful research collaborations.
1992 - CLOSTRIDIUM II
Blacksburg, Virginia, hosted by Jiann-Shin Chen
This was coincidentally also held in a Red Lion Inn, having been moved there following a flood at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. It was however, not possible to futher maintain this tradition. Subsequent meetings have been held in universities or research institutes.
1994 - CLOSTRIDIUM III
Northwestern University, hosted by Terry Papoutsakis
1996 - CLOSTRIDIUM IV
Universtät Ulm, hosted by Peter Dürre
1998 - CLOSTRIDIUM V
INSA Toulouse, hosted by Philippe Soucaille
2000 - CLOSTRIDIUM VI
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign hosted by hans Blaschek
2002 - CLOSTRIDIUM VII
Hotel Warnemünder-Hof in Rostock-Warnemünde, hosted by Hubert Bahl
2004 - CLOSTRIDIUM VIII
Edinburgh hosted by Wilf Mitchell and Martin Tangey
2006 - CLOSTRIDIUM IX
Houston, Texas, May 18-21, 2006 hosted by George Bennett
More details:
http://www.bioc.rice.edu/~gbennett/clostridium9/
2008 - CLOSTRIDIUM X
Wageningen, The Netherlands, 28th September - 1st October 2008. Hosted by Dr. Ana López Contreras and Dr. Pieternel Claassen of Agrotechnology and Food Sciences Group of the Wageningen UR.
More details:
http://www.clostridium10.org/everyone
2010 - CLOSTRIDIUM XI
The Clostridium 11 meeting date took place October 3-6 2010, at the Hilton Hotel and Spa in San Diego (USA). To learn more about the workshop, go to http://www.clostridium11.net/
2012 - CLOSTRIDIUM XII
Clostridium XII took place 10th- 12th September 2012 at Nottingham Conference Centre in Nottingham, UK. It was hosted by Professor Nigel Minton of the University of Nottingham.
MORE DETAILS
2012 - CLOSTRIDIUM XIII
For the first time, Clostridium was held in China, hosted by Professor Weihong Jiang at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai Institute of Biological Sciences (SIBS). The meeting took place 19-21 September 2014.
THE SCOPE
In addition to the bienniel workshops a meeting on the acetone-butanol fermentation, organises by Richard Gapes (Vienna University of Technology) to mark the completion of an EU-funded project which supported building and testing of a pilot plant, was held in Krems, Austria in 1999.
The breadth of subject matter has been maintained at the Clostridium meetings, with all aspects of fermentation including substrate utilization, regulation of acid and solvent formation, product toxicity and stress responses receiving attention. As might be expected, there has been a continual increase in analysis of bacterial behaviour at the molecular level, and considerable advances have been achieved and reported at the meetings, Notably, the detailed taxonomic characterization of C. acetobutylicum strains with the identification of four species, the completion of the genome sequence of C. acetobutylicum ATCC 824, and the development and exploitation of methods for generic manipulation and control of gene expression. The C. acetobutylicum and C. beijerinckii groups still dominate meeting proceedings, but there is growing interest in other species, particularly those with cellulolytic activity. Contributions to the 1994 and 2000 meetings were published as special issues of FEMS Microbiology Reviews (vol 17(3) pp.221-364, 1995) and the Journal of Industrial Microbiology and Biotechnology (vol 27(5) pp 271-335, 2201) respectively, while the proceedings of the Krems meeting were published in the Journal of Molecular Microbiolgy and Biotecnology (vol 2 (1) pp 3-124, 2001).
The success of these meetings has been primarily due
to the quality of the science presented, but the traditional, informal
and friendly atmosphere has contributed to making them both enjoyable
and rewarding experiences.
