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KAW Midterm Meeting 16th and 17th of May 2018

2018-04-27

The Knut and Alice Wallenberg (KAW) project on "Anisotropic Forces in Colloid Chemistry” has been running for two and a half years now and we are organising a mid-term meeting where the current state of the project will be presented and discussed. This meeting is a two-day event (May 16th to 17th, lunch to lunch, in Skissernas Museum (Lund)), where both external and internal partners will present their research relevant for the project.

The registration can be done via e-mail to Peter Holmqvist (peter.holmqvist@fkem1.lu.se), free of charge, by providing the following information:
1.)  name
2.)  affiliation
3.)  for the two lunches and coffee breaks: food preferences (vegetarian; vegan; any food allergies)

4.)  whether you are interested in a tour at Skissernas Museum (after lunch on day 2)
 
Extended deadline for registration: Friday, May 4th
 
A preliminary program can be found via this link.

 


A short summary of the original project proposal, to give
some background on this project:
 
Anisotropic Forces in Colloid Chemistry
 

The main objective of this project is to explore generic phenomena caused by anisotropic colloidal interactions in dense suspensions. Such interactions are of great relevance in as disperse fields as materials science, nanotechnology and many branches of molecular biology. This objective will be accomplished by engineering, synthesizing and assembling concentrated soft matter systems of both artificial and biological origin, which will then be measured and analyzed using state of the art experimental and theoretical tools. The main emphasis is on dynamic properties, where there is a clear lack of knowledge in a rapidly expanding area of science.
The overarching scientific goals of the project are:
• to understand how anisotropic inter-particle interactions influence the self-assembly and diffusion of complex colloidal particles in dense suspensions,
• to understand and exploit anisotropic interactions of particles, of synthetic or biological origin, with lipid membranes,
• to use the thus generated knowledge to unravel generic features of the dynamics of macromolecules and particles of biological origin in dense solutions such as those found in the interior of living cells.
These goals will be achieved through a multidisciplinary project involving extensive international collaborations. There will be parallel research efforts connecting systems of synthetic and biological origin to highlight features of general applicability. We will combine the toolbox of experimental and theoretical colloid chemistry with state-of-the-art characterization techniques, computer simulations and molecular biology methodologies. While we address a number of issues of biological relevance, the emphasis of the project is on generic properties. The underlying research philosophy is based on our experience that fundamental equilibrium phenomena are best studied in controlled model colloidal systems before being applied to the understanding of the complex processes in a living system. It is the ambitious goal of the present proposal to successfully extend the colloid analogy to the description of dynamic phenomena. This concerted research effort will result in substantial progress in our conceptual understanding. It will extend the currently existing experimental and theoretical toolbox of colloid science, not the least towards including molecular details in applications to systems of biological origin.