Travel Support for ACS Symposium "Engineering the Cell-Material Interface", March 24-25, 2010 in San Fransico, California.

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1021403Van TasselA two day symposium is being organized as part of the 239th American Chemical Society National Meeting (March 24-25, 2010) entitled "Engineering the Cell Material Interface". Three leading international scholars have been invited, for whom international travel support is requested.Intellectual Merit: The goal of the symposium is to highlight recent advances in material surface engineering to control cell attachment, migration, proliferation, assembly, and function. A key theme is control of cell behavior through interfacial chemistry, rigidity, topography, patterning, and bioactivity and papers combining physic chemical interfacial characterization with cellular assay are to be show cased. In order to maximize the impact of this symposium, funds are requested to support the participation of three eminent scholars from abroad: Molly Stevens (Imperial College, London, UK) will speak on Engineering the cell material interface for regenerative medicine, Benoit Ladoux (University of Paris Diderot, France) will speak on Microfabricated substrates: a useful tool to study the influence of microenvironments on cell adhesion and migration, and Pierre Schaaf, (Institut Charles Sadron, Strasbourg, France) will speak on Mechanically responsive films for biomedical applications. In addition, three other speakers have also been invited whose support will come from other sources. These speakers include Prof. Kevin Healy of California-Berkeley, Prof. Annelise Barron of Stanford, and Prof. Emmanuel Pauthe of Cergy-Pontoise (France).Broader Impact:Participation by the three individuals listed above will have a significant impact on the symposium. Prof. Schaaf will introduce, at a more fundamental level, important soft matter based concepts relevant to film assembly and application, and explore some interesting technological possibilities of multilayer films, from a more theoretical perspective. Prof. Ladouxs talk with it's focus on characterizing the stresses occurring within the substrate due to cell motion and their influence of the cells will create an ideal backdrop for subsequent talks focusing on chemical and structural properties of cell substrates, and their influence on contacting cells. Prof. Stevens talk is expected to make the transition from the basic science focused talks given earlier in the symposium (surface functionalization, cell responses to specific surfaces), to those focusing on medical applications. All three will help attract audience members otherwise not expected to attend. All symposium attendees but in particular many younger participants (students, postdocs, junior faculty) will benefit through interactions with these leading international experts over the two day symposium. In fact, several of the 27 contributed talks will be given by students and postdocs. It is hoped that mixing leading international scholars with up and coming US scientists may lead to future collaborative and/or exchange efforts. The symposium itself is expected to have a broad impact by providing a forum where advances in basic sciences of cell material interactions, from researchers with diverse backgrounds (chemistry, colloids, biomaterials), may be discussed in the context of new applications in biomedicine. In particular, the symposium could have a broad impact on tissue engineering and regenerative medicine.