46956-SE
Emergence of Function in Molecular Assemblies, at the ACS National Meeting, August 2007, Boston, MA
The PRF-SE grant helped to support the ACS Physical and Colloid and Surface Chemistry Division Symposium, entitled "Emergence of Function in Molecular Assemblies" that took place at the American Chemical Society National Meeting in Boston, 19-23 August 2007. There were three co-organizers of this ACS symposium:
Rigoberto Hernandez, Department of Chemistry, Georgia Tech, whose expertise is the field of statistical mechanics and molecular simulations of complex systems,
Deborah Evans, Department of Chemistry, University of New Mexico, who expertise is in the field of computational and theoretical nanoscience and
Nadrian Seeman, Department of Chemistry, New York University, whose expertise is in the field of DNA-based nanotechnology.
Since P.W.Anderson's article in Science (1972), there has been recognition that complex systems may differ dramatically from the linear limit of their components. There has also been significant progress in the field of molecular-scale assemblies over the last decade. Material nanoscience research has matured to the point that its practitioners modify and manipulate components at the molecular level and it is now clear that emergent properties arise that cannot fully be explained by simply understanding the isolated molecular components. An integrated approach to understand the interactions between the components and the resultant emergent behavior is clearly needed. Physical chemistry is central to understanding many of these molecular-scale interactions, and is poised to play a significant role in the development and application of new ideas in the field of molecular assemblies.
The symposium focus was primarily on the emergence of behavior and function in molecular-scale assemblies, and fulfilled a number of objectives in fundamental research in the petroleum field. Progress in the synthesis of nano- and biologically-inspired assemblies is closely related to the research of carbon-based materials, including the assembly of carbon-based polymers with potentially far-reaching applications in the fields of energy storage, molecular electronics and development of artificial light-harvesting materials as alternative energy sources.
The symposium was divided into eight half-day sessions over five days. At each session, an attempt was made to showcase how scientists from seemingly disparate fields approach essentially the same physical problems from different viewpoints. Both theorists and experimentalists were featured in each session where the goal was to demonstrate how different techniques and methods can be used to cut across traditional areas of study to understand systems as complex as molecular assemblies. Bringing together these diverse groups to focus on how physical chemistry, molecular biophysics and chemical engineering can be used to understand the emergence of new behavior in molecular-scale assemblies will ultimately lead to substantial conceptual advances and novel research directions and collaborations.
The cross-disciplinary nature of each of the sessions can be seen from a summary of the 32 invited speakers at the sessions below:
Nanoparticle Self-Assembly (3 sessions)
Anna C. Balazs, Ralph G. Nuzzo, Robert L Whetten, Claudio Zannoni, George C. Schatz, Eran Rabani, Andrew P. Shreve, John Fourkas, L. Andrew Lyon, George M. Whitesides Sharon C. Glotzer and Abraham Nitzan.
Bioassemblies, Biomaterials and Microfluidics (3 sessions) Ka Yee Lee, Atul N. Parikh, William M. Gelbart, Nigel Goldenfeld, Paul M. Chaikin, John C. Crocker, David J. Pine, Georg Seelig, Rustem F. Ismagilov, Paul W. K. Rothemund, Erwin Frey and D. Weitz.
Molecular Electronics and Electronic and Magnetic Materials (2 sessions)
Jean-Luc Brédas, Daniel L Cox, Alison B Walker, David N. Beratan, Ritesh Agarwal, Mark Ratner, Antoine Kahn and Sarah Tolbert
The identification, characterization and theoretical description of emergent behaviors in molecular assemblies were the central themes of this symposium. The symposium brought together experimentalists and theorists from a variety of disciplines (materials science, physics, chemistry, chemical biology, engineering) to discuss novel and potentially useful emergent phenomena in nanoassemblies and nanomaterials, biomolecular assemblies and magnetic and electronic nanoscale materials. While there have been a large number of symposia in related fields this symposium was unique in its focus on emergent behavior in complex molecular systems and, in particular, in molecular-scale assemblies.
The average attendance throughout the symposium was ~50 people. Funding for this symposium was obtained from the American Chemical Society (ACS), ACS Division of Physical Chemistry, ACS Petroleum Research Fund, and the Taylor and Francis Publishing Company. We requested PRF funds to help bring four international speakers to the meeting. These invited speakers are leaders in their respective fields and broadened the interest in the symposium.
1. Abraham Nitzan, Tel Aviv University (Israel)
Seminar Title: Cooperative effects in molecular conduction
2. Eran Rabani, Tel Aviv University (Israel)
Seminar Title: Drying-mediated self-assembly of nanoparticles: A lattice gas model
3. Alison Walker, University of Bath (United Kingdom)
Seminar Title: Exciton and charge migration in rigid rod conjugated polymers
4. Claudio Zannoni, University of Bologna (Italy)
Seminar Title: Building up Collective Properties in Simple Liquid Crystals
