Research into the mechanisms involved in the sensing and responses of microorganisms to changes in their environment is currently very active in a large number of laboratories in the US, Europe, Japan, and Israel. A wide range of eukaryotic and prokaryotic species are being studies with regard to their sensing of chemical changes, light and redox signal and intercellular signaling, leading either to changes in motile behaviour, gene expression or development. It has become increasingly apparent that the mechanisms involved in development have application in higher organisms while the sensing systems in bacteria are involved in a very wide range of physiological traits, from pathogenicity, through to biofilm formation. This is an area where a wide range of state of the art tools have been used and developed over the past few decades. Approaches include behavioural studies, electro-physiology, genetics, molecular biology, structural biology, biophysics and single molecule microscopy, immunocytochemistry and molecular and mathematical modelling, all of this helped by the large number of bacterial and eukaryotic microbial genome sequences now available. The central goal of this meeting is to bring together investigators using this wide range of approaches and different systems to compare data, share ideas and approaches and seeks to understand the fundamental principles underlying these responses.