Active, Adaptive, and Responsive Biointerfaces

The 2016 GRC on Biointerface Science brings together scientists and engineers, including students, post-docs, young investigators, and thought-leaders in the rapidly consolidating field of natural and engineered biological interfaces. Biointerfaces – encompassing natural interfaces between clusters and assemblies of biomolecules and water, between cells and extra-cellular matrix, between populations of cells and their surroundings, and those between the biotic and the abiotic in engineered settings – are pervasive across a host of fields spanning materials science to medicine, sensing to synthetic biology, plants to pathogenesis, and oncology to the origins of life. Appearing across a range of length- and time-scales as emergent mesoscale features, biointerfaces offer a convergent theme across disciplinary boundaries affording an opportunity to dissect fundamental physical-chemical mechanisms at interfaces, unravel functional significance of interfaces, identify practical challenges, and explore new scientific and technological opportunities.

The 2016 Gordon Research Conference on Biointerface Science seeks to explore this convergence by offering a broad scientific program, spearheaded by distinguished speakers and discussion leaders, to open a cross-disciplinary conversation. Tentative sessions include (1) a keynote session on active, dynamic, and adaptive biological interfaces; (2) smart and responsive biointerfaces, including biosensors; (3) physics and chemistry interfaces; (4) advances in characterization of interfaces; (5) localization of functions at cellular interfaces, including signaling; (6) roles of interfaces in cellular colonies, including those of ECM and EPS; and (7) importance of interfaces in the origins of life and design of synthetic protocells. We have also planned separate sessions for Late-Breaking Topics (selected from submissions) and a concluding Perspective session. The cross-disciplinary interchange at the GRC is expected to help identify common interfacial issues, model systems, characterization tools, and develop a shared language. Following a modified GRC format in the spirit of the "Fraunfelder Rule", this conference promotes active discussions, offers social time, and facilitates free and open scientific communication across experience levels toward building a vibrant and cohesive Biointerface Science community.

Selected Speakers/Discussion Leaders include: (1) Petra Schwille (MPI-Biochemistry) (2) Stephen Mann (Bristol), (3) Dan Fletcher (UC Berkeley), (4) Samuel Stupp (Northwestern), (5) Dek Woolfson (Bristol), (6) Daniel Müller (ETH-Zurich), (7) Sara Sandin (NTU, Singapore), (8) Luke Lee (UC Berkeley), (9) Milan Mrksich (Northwestern), (10) Jay Groves (UC Berkeley), (11) Lee Cronin (Glasgow), and (12) Staffan Kjelleberg (Nanyang Technology University).

The associated Gordon Research Seminar (GRS) on Biointerface Science – in contiguity with the GRC – provides a venue with sufficient intimacy for junior investigators and young scientists to readily establish informal networks for long-term collaborations and a life-time of scientific citizenship.