An international conference is proposed on "Multicellular Behavior of Bacterial: In Nature, Industry and the Laboratory" to be held at Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory. October 21- 25, 1990. The objective of the conference is to examine the importance of bacterial multicellularity in a wide range of situations, including environmental biofilms, mats and colonies, bioreactors, bacterial pathogenesis and bacterial development on laboratory media. This is the first conference devoted specially to consideration of bacteria as multicellular organisms. The meeting has been organized to stimulate interaction between scientists who study bacterial multicellularity from different perspectives, such as fermentation and bioreactor engineers, molecular biologists interested in signal transduction, microbial ecologists, medical microbiologists, etc. It is expected that new insights will emerge into the roles of cell-cell communication and multicellular organization in bacterial activity, thereby helping to generate new concepts and research strategies relevant to a wide range of disciplines. Areas where the ideas generated at the meeting may be applied in practice include biofouling, bioreactor design, biodeterioration and corrosion.
