At the time of his attendance at the first annual Gatherings in Biosemiotics conference in 2001, experimental cellular physiologist and philosopher of science Anton Markoš had just completed a groundbreaking treatise entitled Readers of the Book of Life – a book that called for the development of a "biohermeneutic" understanding of sign processes in living systems that proceeded not from a Peircean or Uexküllian perspective, but from a grounding in the existential hermeneutics of philosopher Hans-Georg Gadamer (1900–2002). Thus it was Markoš's paper presentation at that inaugural conference that led to the incorporation of the "biohermeneutic school" of inquiry into contemporary biosemiotics.