Symposium Support for the 252nd American Chemical Society National Meeting: Soft Material Surface Modification to Control Cell/Surface Interactions

University Of Alabama At Birmingham, Birmingham AL

Investigators

Abstract

Nontechnical: This conference award by the Biomaterials program in the Division of Materials Research to University of Alabama at Birmingham is to organize a two-day symposium on "Soft Material Surface Modification to Control Cell/Surface Interactions" at the 2016 National Meeting and Exposition of the American Chemical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania from August 21 to 25, 2016. This conference aims to bring together leading scientists working in the interdisciplinary area of biomaterials synthesis, properties, and applications. The active participation of graduate students, postdoctoral students and assistant professors is expected. The invited speakers will include newly appointed assistant professors as well as established researchers in academia, and junior and senior scientists at national laboratories and industry. They are expected to show their case research, and emphasize new trends and future directions for surface modification approaches using soft materials to control cell/surfaces interactions. Additionally, this symposium is expected to offer important opportunities for junior faculty members, students and postdoctoral researchers, including a significant number of women, to network with senior researchers. The symposium will be open to all interested scientists/engineers, who are actively working on topics related to soft materials/cell interfaces. Technical: The organizers of this symposium have put together a meeting for the in-depth discussions of fundamentals of soft materials, surface modification including polymer nano- and microparticle/cell and planar surfaces/cell interactions, as well as a broad representation of applications and transformative research. This conference aims in interfacing multiple disciplines (physics, chemistry, biology and engineering) in developing an understanding of the fundamentals of polymer cell interactions, and developing applications based on these novel concepts and approaches. This symposium is expected to provide a forum for scientists and engineers involved in synthesis of biologically relevant polymers, biomaterials assembly to tailor cell/surface modification, and cell/tissue encapsulation, and to share the most recent advances made in this rapidly expanding field.