HISTORY

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

Programme

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.

Programme

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).
More details:
http://www.clostridium11.net/

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.