Sequencing Microbial Genomes / Christoph W. Sensen -- Statistical Predictions of Coding Regions in Prokaryotic Genomes by Using inhomogeneous Markov Models / Mark Borodosky -- Bacterial Genomes-All Shapes and sizes / Stewart T. Cole -- Archaea: Whose Sister Lineage? / Robert L. Charlebois -- The Eukaryotic Perspective: Similarities and distinctions between Pro- and Eukaryotes / Conrad L. Woldringh -- Comparing Microbial Genomes: How the Gene Set Determines the Lifestyle / Michael Y. Galperin -- Impact of homologous recombination on Genome Organization and Stability / Diarmaid Hughes -- Illegitmate Recombination in Bacteria / Benedicte Michel -- Insertion Sequences and Transposons / Ronald Chalmers -- Structure of DNA within the Bacterial Cell: Physics and Physiology / Conrad L. Woldringh Woldringh -- Supercoiling and Its consequences for Chromosome Structure and Function / N. Patrick Higgins -- Local genetic Context, Supercoiling, and Gene Expression / Andrew St. Jean -- "Stable" Genomes / Kenneth E. Sanderson -- Unstable Linear Chromosomes: The Case of Streptomyces / Pierre Leblond -- Genomic Flux: Genome Evolution by Gene Loss and Acquisition / Jeffrey G. Lawrence -- Gene Transfer in Escherichia Coli / Roger Milkman -- Genetic Inventory: Escherichia coli as a window on Ancestral Proteins / Bernard Labedan -- Proteome Approach to the Identification of cellular Escherichia coli Proteins / Amanda S. Nouwens -- Genome-Wide Strategies for Studying Gene Function by Using Model Systems / Reginald K. Storms