47450-SE
Multiscale Modeling in Biophysics, at the ACS National Meeting, April 2008, New Orleans, LA
The grant supported part of the travel expenses for the invited international speakers at the symposium "Multiscale Modeling in Biophysics" that was held at the ACS National Meeting, April 2008, New Orleans, LA. The three international scientists who received $1200 each (for a total of $3,600) from this grant are: Dr. Michele Vendruscolo (University of Cambridge, UK), Dr. Siewert Jan Marrink (University of Groningen, the Netherlands), and Dr. Kurt Kremer (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Mainz, Germany). The symposium brought together theoretical/computational scientists with expertise in modeling, analysis and computation on biophysical processes that span length and time scales of many orders of magnitude. We made sure to have a mixture of young scientists (students, postdocs, assistant professors) and accomplished leaders in the field, both in the speaker list and in the participants in general. The symposium was very successful, as testified by the high number of participants (40-100 in each session for the whole 4 days of the symposium), and allowed a lively exchange among the speakers and the participants. The field of multiscale modeling is relatively young (particularly in the context of biophysical research) and fast expanding. Scientific meetings such as the one supported by this grant are essential to ensure the cross-fertilization of different approaches and facilitate collaborations, and to give students and young scientists the opportunity to fully immerse themselves into this fast evolving scientific landscape. Given the success of the symposium we plan to organize a similar meeting in a few years as a follow-up to this one. Although the symposium has focused on biophysical problems and applications, the multiscale methods, principles, and approaches discussed at the symposium can have direct portability on a much larger set of problems in physical chemistry, surface science, and nanotechnology. As a consequence, advances in this field will affect fundamental science that underlies progress in the petroleum field.
