A better understanding of the self-assembly of highly ordered peptide nanostructures is vital as not only does it help to uncover the pathogenesis of various neurodegenerative diseases but it also provides new clues for a "bottom-up" design and fabrication of nanoscale devices and sensors for use in biomedicine. One of the primary challenges that is faced when designing these nanoscale devices and sensors is the ability to tune the interface in order to optimise the self-assembly of the peptides near the device interface for the desired application. Therefore obtaining a molecular scale understanding of the interactions between peptides and the desired interface is of utmost importance. Computer simulations have proven to be a very powerful tool in providing insight into these interactions and therefore will continue to play a significant part in the further development and design of these systems.
Due to the broad range of applications driven by this science, this field continues to become more and more interdisciplinary including medics, biologists, chemists, physicists, material scientists and engineers. This CECAM workshop will bring together the pre-eminent scientists in the various fields to discuss the open questions from the experimental and computational angles of attempting to gain a new level of understanding of how functionalised interfaces interact with the aggregation of proteins. The workshop will be held 17-19 September 2014 in Lausanne, Switzerland. If you are interested in participating in this workshop, please visit the workshop website (http://www.cecam.org/workshop-1040.html) to find details as to how to apply.
