Water: Complex Traits of a Simple Molecule

The Gordon Research Seminar on Water & Aqueous Solutions is a unique forum for graduate students, post-docs, and other scientists with comparable levels of experience and education to present and exchange new data and cutting edge ideas.

The focus of this meeting is H₂O, and therefore one of the simplest chemical formulas one can possibly encounter. However, the many roles of water and its chemical and physical anomalies are anything but simple. It is the only substance we encounter as a solid, liquid and gas in our everyday life. Its phase transitions determine the dynamics of our atmosphere. This simple molecule divides the chemistry world into hydrophilic and hydrophobic substances, and the ability of molecules to interact favorably with the water hydrogen bond network (or the tendency to avoid it) governs the delicate balance of stability and dynamical flexibility of biomolecules and lipid bilayers in living organisms.

The presentations during this GRS will focus on the properties of water at hydrophobic, hydrophilic and air-water interfaces, as well as in confined environments, its role in biological processes and the solvation of biomolecules, its phase diagram and the various anomalies associated with its liquid and solid forms. We welcome participants from all over the world working in a broad range of water research fields - experiments and theory, gas, liquid, solid, supercritical phases and water interacting with other molecules.