The meeting will take place in the first week of September in 2012 at the Mediterranean coast of France. The aim of the meeting is to bring together eminent researchers from interdisciplinary fields working on various aspects of cell and tissue biophysics including adhesion, mechano-sensing, morphogenesis, transport, single molecule studies etc. We hope to stimulate exchange of ideas between theorists and experimentalists, and between physicists, chemists and biologists. We also hope for large participation from young and emerging scientists who would benefit vastly from exposure to this eclectic gathering.

A two and a half days of advanced school, aimed at graduate students as well as researchers at the interface of biology with physical sciences, will precede the four day conference. The conference is the second in the series on Cell Biophysics and is a follow up of the first meeting "Physics of Cells - PhysCell2009" which was organized in 2009 in Croatia in honour of Prof. Erich Sackmann. The current meeting will be dedicated to Pierre Gilles deGennes and will benefit from close collaboration with the foundation set up in his memory.

The plasma membrane enveloping mammalian cells is a two-dimensional fluid bilayer consisting primarily of thousands of different types of lipids and proteins. Far from being featureless, it is now well-established that the membrane is "patchy” with spatially organized regions of structure and function, both in terms of lipids and proteins; for an over-view, see Refs. [1-3]. The spatially-extended nature of the membrane "patchiness” together with dynamic membrane processes, due to both thermodynamic fluctuations and non-equilibrium cellular events (such as endo- and exocytosis), provide challenges for theorists and computational scientists alike to develop and simulate quantitative models that seamlessly "funnel” information via coarse-graining from the molecular length and time scales up to the mesoscale.

Scope:

A. Coarse-graining the static properties of lipid membranes

B. Coarse-graining the dynamic properties of lipid membranes in and out of thermal equilibrium  

C. Coarse-graining the description of protein-lipid interactions and protein dynamics

Objectives:

(1) Phase diagrams and phase transition kinetics in multicomponent lipid systems - how do we combine observation and modeling of molecular rearrangements on > 100 nm length scales during domain formation and/or phase transitions?
(2) Coupling between different fluctuating fields (e.g., shape and composition) - how can continuum elastic theories, mean field models and particle-based simulations be combined so as to capture membrane behavior from 1 nm to 10 microns?
(3) Cooperative phenomena in membranes - how do membranes and proteins interact collectively in processes that span multiple length and/or time scales, for example, endocytosis?
(4) Active lipid transport and non-equilibrium membrane processes in live cells - how is energy efficiently deposited into a membrane to drive processes such as raft domain formation, pore formation, vesicle fusion, membrane invagination and protein activity?
(5) Hydrodynamic effects on membrane dynamics and their efficient numerical modeling - when are hydrodynamic effects indispensable in membrane dynamics, and how can their effects be quantitatively captured across scales?
(6) Large-scale membrane remodeling events studied through a hierarchy of scales - how do we connect single-molecule diffusion studies to collective migration of lipid domains or patches? 
(7) Cross-coupling between lipids and proteins - Membranes move proteins and proteins reshape membranes: how do we systematically improve the minimal protein models and dynamics currently employed in coarse-grained simulations and parametrize them using atomistic modeling so as to better understand e.g. protein aggregation dynamics?
(8) Connecting single/multiple particle tracking experiments with nanoscale spatial resolution [see, e.g., C Eggeling et al., Nature 457, 1159 (2009)] in live cells to the underlying collective membrane dynamics. What do such experiments reveal about membrane structure and dynamics, and how can theory and simulations be exploited to devise new experimental strategies?

The Chemical Biophysics Symposium is a student organized conference now in its eighth year of providing an informal venue for discussions of topics bridging the physical and biological sciences. Past Symposia have been marked by a strong multi-disciplinary turnout including biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, and other more exotic species; lively (but good-natured!) debates during panel discussions and question periods; a lavish Saturday evening banquet; and stellar lineups of prominent invited speakers. We hope to continue this tradition this coming spring (April 24-26, 2009), and we encourage all interested faculty, postdocs, and students to attend.

The Biophysical Society's 53rd Annual Meeting will be held, from February 28, 2009 through March 4, 2009, in Boston, Massachusetts at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center. The largest gathering of biophysicists around the world, this meeting includes Symposia, Workshops, Minisymposia, Subgroup Programs, and the National Lecture, as well as Educational Exhibits, Exhibitor Presentations, and Committee Events.

Although there is great interest in inorganic nanomaterials, the real excitement is at the interface of nano physics and chemistry with biology. At the level of cells and below, biological processes are increasingly being conceived in terms of nanomachines, in an environment delineated by nanostructures, that are understandable using techniques familiar to chemists and physicists.
The field is being transformed by remarkable advances in physical measurement as well as biological preparation techniques, including laser technology, single-molecule manipulation, enzymatic techniques, microscopies etc...
This conference will address progress and prospects in Nanobiophysics & Chemistry including nano and microfluidics, single molecule techniques, biomimetics and sensing, biomolecules in confined environments, in vivo imaging, forces in biomolecular systems, manipulation of biomaterials, spectroscopy of biomaterials, nanoparticles in biological environments, force microscopies, simulation of biomolecules and biomolecular assemblies at the atomic and coarse grained scales. Contributed talks in all areas (including those not listed above) are welcome.
The conference will also provide an overview of the latest developments in bionano physics and chemistry. It will be followed immediately by a conference on Nanomedicine where many of the advances in fundamental understanding discussed at the nanobio physics and chemistry event will find application.