Materials and Biology from Many Perspectives

The emerging, interdisciplinary field of Bioinspired Materials focuses on developing a fundamental understanding of the synthesis, directed self-assembly and hierarchical organization of natural occurring materials, and uses this understanding to engineer new "bioinspired" artificial materials for diverse applications. The 2016 Gordon Conference on Bioinspired Materials aims to capture the excitement of this burgeoning field by a cutting-edge scientific program that focuses on fundamental research in Bioinspired Materials Science, chemistry and biology, and the myriad applications that stem from this fundamental research. To do so we have assembled a roster of distinguished invited speakers and discussion leaders who will address the key issues in the field. Topics cover a wide range of building blocks of bioinspired materials, the synthesis of bioinspired materials made from or inspired by these building blocks, their self-assembly, their system-level integration to create nano-mesoscale scale functional devices, characterization and simulation self-assembly, biological interactions of these materials, and the application of these materials in different domains. The conference is intended to promote cross-disciplinary fertilization of new ideas in the emerging field of Bioinspired Materials and will stimulate interactions between young scientists, underrepresented minority scientists, and junior faculty with prominent senior investigators.