Euresco Conference BIOPHYSICS FROM FIRST PRINCIPLES: FROM THE ELECTRONIC TO THE MESOSCALE
San Feliu de Guixols - Spain 7-12 September 2002
Supported by the European Commission, Research DG, Human Potential Programme, High Level Scientific Conferences (Contract No: HPCF-CT-2001-00032)
Sponsored by: ESF Programme: "Electronic Structure Calculations for Elucidating the Complex Atomistic Behaviour of Solids and Surfaces" (Psi-k)
IBM
Generalitat de Catalunya
Organised by Anne Chaka NIST - Chemical and Physical Properties Division Gaithersburg, USA
Flavio Seno INFM and Dipartimento di Fisica University di Padova, Padova, ITALY
The Euresco Conference "Biophysics from First Principles: From the Electronic to the Mesoscale" took place in San Feliu de Guixols from 7 to 12 September 2002. The Conference was the first of a series on "Computational Biophysics: Integrating Theoretical Physics and Biology" that will take place every two years.
The purpose of the conference was to bring together theoretical and experimental researchers from physics, chemistry, biological sciences and industry to foster interdisciplinary approaches to the study of living systems. 121 researchers from 28 countries spent five days discussing such innovative themes.
The conference primarily focused on the application of theoretical physics, from first principles to classical simulations, as well as statistical approaches, to understanding biological processes.
The Conference included the following sections:
- Understanding biological mechanisms
- Predicting biological activity of chemicals
- Molecular interactions and solvation: short and long range forces
- Structure and function of biological macromolecules
- Transition metal chemistry
The Programme of the Conference consisted of invited talks, contributed papers presented in oral form (13) or as a poster (two sessions for a total of 91 contributions). The quality of the discussion during the sessions was ensured by the chairpeople, who themselves are leading figures in the field.
The invited talks (one-hour long) were presented by 22 scientists: 5 from Germany, 4 from USA and Italy, 3 from Sweden, 2 from England, 1 from Austria, Israel, Spain and Switzerland. 20 minutes of each talk were devoted to questions and debate.
All the speakers tried to identify strengths and weakness of their particular reserach method(s) and to give opinions do promising new developments. This fact gave ample opportunity for extended and informal discussions during the scheduled afternoon free time and evenings.
One evening of the meeting was devoted to discuss the future of this series and to select the future chairpersons. It was decided that the title of series will change to "Biophysics from first principles: Integrating Theoretical Physics and Biology". The chairperson of the next meeting (2004) will be Ursula Roethilsberger (ETH-Zurich) and Paolo Carloni (SISSA-Trieste).
It was important that part of participants were PhD students and post docs from ab-initio group whose stay was partially supported by ESF.
The full list of participants and all abstracts are provided on the website http://www.esf.org/euresco/02/pc02l82
Anne Chaka (Gaithersburg) and Flavio Seno (Padova)
More details may be found in newsletter 53 from page 13