Bionanomaterials with Structure-Property Paradigm

Journal of Nanomaterials

Special Issue on

Bionanomaterials with Structure-Property Paradigm

Call for Papers

Bionanotechnology is a new frontier of research that combines two seemingly incompatible objects: the building blocks of life and synthetic structures, both of them at a tiny, molecular-sized level. Its focus is on the development of powerful techniques and methods that merge the strengths of nanotechnology, working typically in the range of 1 to 100 nanometers, and biophysics, to generate a new type of “bionanomaterial” which has some uniquely designed properties. When combined with molecular biology, the possible applications of this applied nanoscience can become widespread and significant for example, nanobots, biosensors, conjugated nanoparticles, and semisynthetic nanopores it, once implanted in the human organism, could perform a number of medical and other functional duties, from delivering drugs to detecting malignant cells. In spite of such spectacular tasks undergone by biomaterials science and technology, there is still a need of resolving many conceptual problems enabling further development. One of them appears to be the so-called structure-property paradigm that tightly links complex structural properties of the soft material at nanoscale to its mainly transport properties, checking the material’s structure for one of its basic (dynamic) properties, for example, viscoelastic. Such a procedure, irrespective whether experimental and/or theoretical, is capable of uncovering many interesting practical contexts within which the biomaterial can be utilized, such as the ones of nanorheological, memory-effect involving, thermodynamic versus kinetic, and finally, dimensional character.

This special issue of the Journal of Nanomaterials, intending to cover a selected range of basic and applied research, focusing on the structure-property paradigm of a model biomaterial, will be based on, but certainly not limited to, papers from a two-day Symposium on “soft-matter physics after De Gennes seen from polish perspective”, to be held at Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland, 10-11 March 2008. It was a pioneer, Professor Pierre Gilles De Gennes, Nobel Prize 1991, who passed peacefully away this year in Orsay, France, but whose very succession remained worth developing (see Europhys. News 38-4 (2007) 8-9). For this purpose, we will use a naturally arising opportunity of 60th birthday of one of the Polish eminent soft-matter researchers, Professor Zbigniew J. Grzywna from Silesian University of Technology, Gliwice, Poland, and his outstanding contributions to selected areas of soft-matter science, also viewed by the late De Gennes, in order to present some special topics by a number of leading theoreticians and experimenters.

This special issue of the Journal of Nanomaterials will cover a wide range of nanomaterials research for biomedicine applications focusing on synthesis, functionalization, processing, characterization, computer modeling of nanoparticles, nanostructured coatings, films, membranes, nanoporous materials, nanocomposites, hybrid systems, and biomedical devices. Fundamental understanding of the basic mechanisms on chemical and biological processes related to the unique nanoscale properties of the materials will be the highlight of this special issue.

Papers are solicited in, but not confined to, the following topical highlights:

o Fundamental phenomena of biomatter systems in nanoscale, in particular, formation of (bio)membranes, micelles, and ‘soft’ aggregates

o Structural properties of biomaterials and biological tissues in nanoscale, associated with their functions

o Synthetic and model analogues of biological channels as seen in terms of structure and its relation to the stochastic transport properties

o Nanoporous materials with membrane and energyharvesting applications

o Theoretical and computer modeling of transport and associated nanostructural properties of soft materials.

Authors should follow the Journal of Nanomaterials manuscript format described at the journal sitehttp://www.hindawi.com/journals/jnm/. Prospective authors should submit an electronic copy of their complete manuscript through the journal Manuscript Tracking System athttp://mts.hindawi.com/according to the following timetable:

Manuscript Due: April 1, 2008

First Round of Reviews: July 1, 2008

Publication Date: October 1, 2008

Guest Editors:

o Adam Gadomski, Department of Modeling of Physicochemical Processes, University of Technology and Life Sciences, 85225 Bydgoszcz, Poland;agad@utp.edu.pl

o Zuzanna Siwy, Research Group Synthetic Analogues of Biological Channels, University of California, Irvine, CA 92697, USA;zsiwy@uci.edu

o Monika Krasowska, Section of Physics and Applied Mathematics, Silesian University of Technology, 44100 Gliwice, Poland;Monika.Krasowska@polsl.pl