nanoSWEC workshop in Bordeaux, France

Over the last decades, tremendous progresses have been achieved in our capability to do work at the nm scale. Design and fabrication of new nano-objects, ingenious and sophisticated experimental set up dedicated to characterize, manipulate and organize matter at nanoscale. Nanosystems and nanoobjects open new area with a dominant role of interface properties increasing the level of complexity.

Nanosciences and nanotechnology have a great deal to learn from bioscience, but it might also be the other way around: “unless you can build it yourself, you don’t understand it”. In other words, by trying to build nanostructures and nanomachines, our understanding of natural complex architectures will greatly increase and generate new insights for the extraordinary complexity we see in Nature.

To achieve such formidable tasks, biologists, bio-chemists, chemists, physicists and mathematicians must work together. While obviously a pressing need, somehow this goal appears as an ideal one given the fragmentation these disciplines must sometimes endure.

The “Bioinspired nanosystems and nanomaterials” NanoSWEC (Nano South-West European Conference ) Workshop aimed at gathering all these disciplines involved in bio inspired and bio mimetic approaches to conceive new systems and materials. The NanoSWEC Workshop took place in Bordeaux (France): November 2-4, 2009.

During the event, the EU funded Coordination Action “nanoICT” co-organised a specific session on BioICT issues including the following invited talks:
Jean-Jacques Toulmé (IECB, Bordeaux): Aptamer scaffolds for nanodevices
Igor Nabiev (CIC nanoGUNE Consolider, Spain): Resonance Energy Transfer from Semiconductor Quantum Dots Improves Biological Function of Bacteriorhodopsin within the “Bacteriorhodopsin-Quantum Dot” Hybrid Material
Dek Woolfson (School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK): Rational Peptide Design in Nanoscience and Synthetic Biology

Principal aims of these specific sessions are to define future research directions for the physical realisation of ICT, actively promote and disseminate the results of ICT-FET initiatives and increase the impact of the NanoICT FET proactive initiative on the innovation potential of Europe.

More info:
NanoICT project http://www.nanoict.org
Nano South-West European Conference, NanoSWEC2009:
http://www.u-bordeaux1.fr/cnano/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=184&Itemid=154

Contact Information:
-Questions regarding the nanoICT project please contact:
Dr. Antonio Correia (Project Coordinator): antonio(at)phantomsnet.net

Keywords

• Nanobiotechnology
• BioInspired

Countries

Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czechia, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Greece, Spain, Finland, France, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, United Kingdom