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Polymers and Self Assembly: From Biology to Nanomaterials
Welcome Letter
October 2015
Dear Colleagues,
We would like to welcome you to the Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting,
Polymers
and Self Assembly: From Biology to Nanomaterials
, co-sponsored by the Brazilian agencies
FAPERJ and CNPq. These Thematic Meetings are an opportunity for scientists who might not
normally meet together to gather and exchange ideas in different locations around the world.
Previous Thematic Meetings have been held in China, Singapore, the United States, India, South
Korea, Ireland, Poland, Turkey, Taiwan and Spain. Future meetings are already scheduled for
South Africa, Canada and Switzerland.
Our meeting is aimed at bringing together biophysicists who study protein polymers, both
those occurring normally, such as bacterial flagellar filaments, F-actin and microtubules, and
those occurring pathologically, such as amyloid, with materials scientists, chemists and
physicists who work on synthetic peptides, polymers and designed structures. Great advances
that have recently been made in cryo-EM, which now allow many polymers to be readily solved
at a near-atomic resolution, helped stimulate the organization of this meeting, but we look
forward to presentations using many different techniques that are helping to elucidate the
structure of these self-assembled polymers. We hope that you will all actively take part in the
discussions following each talk, in the poster sessions, and in the informal exchanges that will be
possible during the coffee breaks, the banquet and the excursion. We also hope that you will
enjoy the beautiful surroundings of Rio de Janeiro!
The Organizing Committee
Vince Conticello
Edward Egelman
Louise Serpell
Jerson Silva Ting Xu