Since 1990, an international conference on the genetics and physiology of acid — and solvent-producing clostridia is being held biannually. Clostridium 1 took place in Salisbury, UK, while the following meetings were located in Blacksburg, Virginia (1992), Evanston, Illinois (1994), Ulm, Germany (1996), Toulouse, France (1998), Champaign/Urbana, Illinois (2000), Rostock, Germany (2002), Edinburgh, UK (2004), Houston, Texas (2006), and Wageningen, The Netherlands (2008). Clostridium 11 will be held in the United States in 2010 and Clostridium 12 probably in Nottingham, UK in 2012. These symposia provide an excellent means for both young and experienced researchers to learn about most recent findings in basic and applied aspects of the solvent-forming clostridia.

An additional resource is the web page ‘www. clostridia. net’, maintained by Nigel P. Minton in Nottingham, providing information on apathogenic and pathogenic clostridia, forthcoming conferences, transnational research collaborations, and Marie Curie-workshops especially aiming at pre — and postdoctoral researchers.

Finally, six books have been published meanwhile, either dealing with specific aspects of clostridia or giving a comprehensive overview of this genus (Bahl and Durre, 2001; Bruggemann and Gottschalk, 2009; Durre, 2005b; Minton and Clarke, 1989; Rood et al, 1997; Woods, 1993).

10.6 Acknowledgments

Work reported from this laboratory was supported by grants from the BMBF GenoMik and GenoMikPlus projects (Competence Network Gottingen) and the SysMO project COSMIC (PtJ-BIO/SysMO/P-D-01-06-13), www. sysmo. net.