Conference on Assembly and Self-Assembly at the Interface of Biology, Chemistry and Physics Held in Il Ciocco, Italy, on 20-25 August 2001.

摘要

This report on the Conference on Assembly and Self-Assembly at the Interface of Biology, Chemistry, and Physics held in Il Ciocco, Italy, on August 20-25, 2001, includes an overview, the program, attendee list, and presentation abstracts. Recent advances, such as scanning probe microscopy, genetic approaches in molecular biology, optical traps, and single molecule microscopy and spectroscopy, created a natural interface between the worlds of chemistry, physics, and biology by exploring the nanometer scale. This is the fundamental length scale where novel mesoscopic materials confront the building blocks of life: proteins and DNA. These developments in nanoscience, together with visions of nanoengineering and lessons from cell and molecular biology define a current challenge: manufacturing complex, heterogeneous structures of well-controlled architecture and function. The attainment of this objective requires a deeper knowledge of assembly and self-assembly (ASA) as encountered in biology, chemistry, and physics. More specifically, the design of fundamentally new materials depends on an understanding of how the desired structural theme or complex function is 'coded' into the molecular architecture of the reactants. The study of ASA is essential to all three disciplines. However, the design parameters, the control strategies, and the nature of the end products differ widely in these fields. The ASA interdisciplinary conference seeks to promote the exchange of ideas between different and weakly interacting communities, namely physics and chemistry of soft matter, supramolecular chemistry, and cell and molecular biology. Furthermore, it attempted to enhance contacts between industrial and academic research laboratories.