My lab has been working on bacterial cell division for about a decade. 2003 seemed like a good time to submit a general review on bacterial cell division because it coincided with completion of the identification of the set of essential genes needed for cell division (about 10 in most bacteria) and elucidation of the hierarchy of assembly of the proteins. What is needed in the next few years, following from this, is a biochemical description of what the proteins do. This is the major challenge going forward and the review sets the scene for that major piece of work. Most people working in this general area see it as a good general reference for the current state of the art in this field.

I’ve been interested in cell division since being an undergraduate. It’s a fundamental problem of central importance in biology and not understood in any organism. Bacterial cells are relatively simple and we stand a chance of understanding the molecular basis of division in these organisms within a reasonable time scale.