Soft Matter Blog

The 31st conference of The European Colloid and Interface Society will be held from 3-8 September 2017 at the Complutense University of Madrid. The annual ECIS conference is a major event for the colloid science community, whose primary goal is to bring together all major disciplines of colloids and interfaces, enabling participants to exchange knowledge, communicate with each other the results of their recent research, and to network with colleagues for new collaborations.

The ECIS 2017 will cover fundamental and applied advances in the fields of interfaces, dispersed systems, wetting, complex fluids, micro-and nano-engineered materials, upconversion nanoparticles, ion specific effects, self-assembly of surfactants, polymers and proteins, and advances in theory and instrumentation.

Plenary lectures will be given by the laureates of the Overbeek 2017 and Solvay 2017 prizes and awards will be given for the best oral presentations and poster presentations, some of which will be supported by Soft Matter.

Plenary speakers confirmed:

• Katharina Landfester (Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, Germany)
• Jacob Klein (Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel)
• Luis Liz Marzan (CIC BioMagune, San Sebastian, Spain)
• Maria Jose Alonso (University of Santiago of Compostela, Spain)
• Michael Cates (University of Cambridge, UK)
• Gareth McKinley (Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Massachusetts, USA)
• Thomas Zemb (Institut de Chimie Séparative de Marcoule, France)

Abstract submission deadline for poster presentations is 30 May – click here to enter now and find out further information on the ECIS website.

The Ring Polymers Workshop, which takes place from 25-27 September in Hersonissos, Crete, will discuss recent advances and applications in the field of ring polymers. The format of the workshop will include invited and contributed (oral and poster) presentations, as well as ample time for both formal and informal discussions.

Invited speakers include:

• Rae Anderson (San Diego)
• Ralf Everaers (Lyon)
• George Floudas (Ioannina)
• Scott Grayson (Tulane)
• Margarita Krutyeva (Jülich)
• Alexander Grosberg (NYU)
• Yasuyuki Tezuka (Tokyo)
• Christos Likos (Vienna)
• Davide Michieletto (Edinburgh)

For a full list of invited speakers please click here.

Early bird registration ends 10 May – to register now or book accommodation, visit the ring polymers website.

The Mechanical Forces in Biology symposium, which takes place at EMBL Heidelberg from 12-15 July, aims to unite the field of mechanobiology, by bringing together world-leading experts in the generation and sensing of forces from the molecular scale to the organismal scale, with an important emphasis on the combination of physics and computer modelling with molecular genetics and live-imaging in vitro or in vivo.

The field is currently expanding rapidly and the event aims to provide a comprehensive overview of this progress as well as aiming to capitalise on the opportunities for new collaborations. Topics covered in the symposium include: force generation; mechanosensing; mechanotransduction; cellular morphogenesis and tissue morphogenesis.

Keynote speakers confirmed:

This is the third colloid science conference in this series and will be held at Manchester Central from 10-12 July 2017. It is being jointly organised by the RSC Colloid and Interface Science Group and the SCI Colloid and Surface Science Group and will provide a perfect opportunity for UK and international researchers interested in colloid and interface science to meet, present and discuss issues related to current developments in this field.

Confirmed plenary speakers include:

• Prof Debora Berti (University of Florence and Centre for Colloid and Surface Science, Italy)
• Prof Vinny N Manoharan (Harvard University, USA)
• Prof Paul Mulvaney (University of Melbourne, Australia)

The deadline for abstract submission is 18 April – click here to submit now and visit the website for full programme updates, list of speakers and further information.

The Thermodynamics 2017 conference, held at the John McIntyre Conference Centre,  will be the 25th meeting in a series of biennial thermodynamics conferences initiated in 1964 by Harold Springall, championed throughout the 1960s and 1970s by Max McGlashan and Sir John Rowlinson.

The format of the conference is based on invited lectures, oral presentations, short presentations and poster prizes, supported by Soft Matter. A number of awards will be given to recognised researchers and young scientists. The conference aims to attract about 200 researchers and presenters from academia and industry from around the world. In 2017, the main themes of the conference will include Advances in molecular simulation; Interfacial and confined phenomena; Engineered self-assembly; Carbon capture and other industrial applications; Non-equilibrium thermodynamics; Challenges and advances in fluid phase equilibria.

Plenary speakers confirmed:

Prof. Debra Bernhardt (University of Queensland, Australia)

Prof. Pablo Debenedetti (Princeton University, USA)

Prof. Ruth Lynden-Bell (University of Cambridge, UK)

Dr Francois-Xavier Coudert (Institut de Recherche de Chimie Paris, France)

Prof. Martin Trusler (Imperial College London, UK)

Prof. Carlos Vega (University Complutense of Madrid, Spain)

Prof. Nigel Wilding (University of Bath, UK)

Registration and abstract submission is now open – click here to register, or find out more on the Thermodynamics website.

10-12 May, 2017, University of Luxembourg

Soft Matter is pleased to support Twisted, a two-day conference on the physics, chemistry and applications of cholesteric lyotropic liquid crystals developing in colloidal suspensions of chiral nanorods.

The motivation for the conference is the rapidly growing interest in liquid crystals formed by nanocrystals of cellulose or chitin, filamentous viruses, carbon nanotubes and similar rod-like nanoparticles in suspensions in water or other isotropic solvents, and topics will be covered in four sessions: