The meeting will cover a broad range of topics in prokaryotic biology -antibiotic resistance, transcriptional & genetic networks, bacterial communities, regulation, signaling, cell biology, pathogenesis-, with an emphasis on novel approaches that drive each field or have the potential to revolutionize future research in microbiology. This meeting aims to bridge the gap between traditional microbiology and systems approaches-novel technologies, by exposing microbiologists to new ways of addressing their hypotheses, and allowing systems or technology experts to get a feeling of the burning questions in the field and/or find collaborators for follow-up work or for applying their technology. We envision that this conference will become a must-attend conference for scientists working with bacteria and new technologies, and will turn into a series. The conference series will remain in the interface of new technologies and new biology in prokaryotic organisms, but the biological focuses and organizers will regularly change.