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The seventh meeting of The International Symposium of Anaerobic Microbiology (ISAM) was organized by the Institute of Animal Physiology of Slovak Academy of Sciences in beautiful Smolenice Castle from 15 to 18 July 2011. Like its predecessors and those planned for the future, the 7th ISAM meeting was aimed at bringing together researchers in all fields of anaerobic microbiology and to offer especially young scientists the possibility to present their work. For the first time, much wider concern was devoted to the practical and environmental aspects of anaerobic microbiology. The purposes of these meetings are to promote the exchange of ideas and to note and record advances in both theoretical and experimental techniques in the field.

With over 60 participants attending the 2-day period, it was one of the largest conferences of its kind to date. Participants came from around the world (12 countries) and again reflected a wide interest in the growing field of anaerobe microbiology. The Scientific Program consisted of four plenary talks followed by 2 days of exciting lectures ranging over all aspects of anaerobic microbiology. The theme for the meeting, “From research to practice application," focused on the complex world of anaerobe microbiology, paying particular attention to covering topics that highlighted the multidisciplinary nature of anaerobic microbiology including genetics and genomics of anaerobes; biochemistry, proteomics, and metabolomics of anaerobes; biodiversity of anaerobes in different ecological niches, and environmental and practical aspects of anaerobe activities. Plenary talks featured distinguished speakers from abroad (Harry J. Flint, Aberdeen; Evelyne Forano, Clermont-Ferrand; Charles J. Newbold, Aberyswyth; and Heribert Insam, Innsbruck). Apart from the formal question-and-answer sessions, there was vigorous scientific interaction among the participants.

The seventh meeting in the series confirmed the richness and complexity of anaerobic microbiology. The organizers of the 7th ISAM meeting believe that participants found their common scientific interests, inspiration for new experiments as well as for inter-laboratory cooperation, and therefore, they decided to meet again on the 8th ISAM symposium in Austria in 2013.

The organizers would like to take this opportunity to thank all our sponsors, namely the Federation of European Microbiological Societies for their support, which permitted us to support participation of 12 young researchers in the symposium. Finally, we would like to thank the editorial board of Folia Microbiologica for agreeing to publish selected papers presented at the ISAM Meeting in a special issue of the journal.