Call for Papers

Please contact the symposium organizers with questions.

Understanding biomolecule interactions at solid interfaces is crucial for designing soft interfaces in technology and medicine. Peptides, with their 10-20 amino acid sequences, are much smaller than proteins and thus more manageable and efficient for materials scientists and engineers. Recent advancements in high throughput screening, directed evolution, computational modeling, and machine intelligence have greatly enhanced the ability to design peptides with predictable, exclusive functions. This symposium will bring together three scientific communities: materials scientists, condensed- and soft-matter physicists, and chemists on the one hand, and molecular biologists, geneticists, and biotechnologists on the other. Computational and machine intelligence scientists will also be present, creating a truly convergent science and technology platform. The symposium aims to review the recent accelerated evolution of fundamental insights learned at the bio/solid hybrid interfaces and explore the molecular approaches in practical implementations, from mainstream applications in tissue engineering and biomedical materials coatings to peptide-functionalized drugs and delivery systems to genetically enabled bio-electronic, -magnetic, and -photonic materials, sensors, logic devices, and quantum biological systems.

Topics will include:

• Molecular Biomimetics – Lessons from Biology at the Molecular Dimensions
• Deep Directed Evolution & Deep Mutational Scanning, Solid Binding peptides
• The role of structured water at bio/solid interfaces- from theory to applications
• Chimeric peptides as multifunctional molecular constructs
• Molecular self-assembly at bio/solid interfaces
• Engineered peptides in bioelectronics, biophotonics, and biomagnetics
• Predictive design of peptides, peptidoglycans, and peptidolipids
• High-throughput experimentation and data acquisition at bio/nano interfaces
• Computational modeling of bio/solid interfaces
• Biomineralization and Remineralization of Bone and Dental Tissues

Invited Speakers (tentative):

• Maisoon Al-Jawad (University of Leeds, United Kingdom)
• Frances Arnold (California Institute of Technology, USA)
• Nurit Ashkenasy (Ben-Gurion University, Israel)
• David Baker (University of Washington, USA)
• Francois Baneyx (University of Washington, USA)
• Annelise E. Barron (Stanford University, USA)
• Magnus Berggren (Linköping University, Sweden)
• Andrew Care (University of Technology Sydney, Australia)
• Douglas Fowler (University of Washington, USA)
• Peter Fratzl (Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany)
• Aren E Gerdon (Emmanuel College, USA)
• Nick Jakubovics (Newcastle University, United Kingdom)
• David Kaplan (Tufts University, USA)
• Kalpana Katti (North Dakota State University, USA)
• Roya Maboudian (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
• Ann Magnuson (Uppsala University, Sweden)
• Henry C Margolis (University of Pittsburgh, USA)
• Phillip Messersmith (University of California, Berkeley, USA)
• Janet Moradian-Oldak (University of Southern California, USA)
• Darrin Pochan (University of Delaware, USA)
• Ram Samudrala (University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, USA)
• Serdar Sariciftci (Johannes Kepler Universität Linz, Austria)
• Mehmet Sarikaya (University of Washington, USA)
• Malcolm Snead (University of Southern California, USA)
• Molly Stevens (Imperial College London, United Kingdom)
• Candan Tamerler (University of Kansas, USA)
• Silvia Vignolini (Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces, Germany)
• Tiffany Walsh (Deakin University, Australia)
• Steve Weiner (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)
• Domenick Zero (Indiana University, USA)

Symposium Organizers