Biophysics and the Challenges of Emerging Threats

This volume is a collection of articles from the proceedings of the International School of Structural Biology and Magnetic Resonance 8th Course: Biophysics and the Challenges of Emerging Threats. This NATO Advance Study Institute (ASI) was held in Erice at the Ettore Majorana Foundation and Centre for Scientific Culture on 19 through 30 June 2007. The ASI brought together a diverse group of experts who bridged the fields of virology and biology, biophysics, chemistry and physics. Prominent lecturers and students from around the world representant a total of 24 countries participated in the NATO ASI organized by Professors Joseph Puglisi (Stanford University, USA) and Alexander Arseniev (Moscow, RU). The central hypothesis underlying this ASI was that interdisciplinary research, merging principles of physics, chemistry and biology, can drive new discovery in detecting and fighting bioterrorism agents, lead to cleaner environments, and help propel development in NATO partner countries. The ASI merged the related disciplines of biophysics, biochemistry and molecular structure to treat, detect, and understand emerging infectious diseases. It addressed the treatment and detection of bioterrorism agents, and focused on critical partner country priorities in biotechnology, materials, drug discovery and the environment. It provided crossroads discussing new technologies in biophysics and structural biology, their implications pathogen detection and treatment and their role in partner country development. The ASI allowed deep and wide-ranging discussion between lecturers and students, providing overviews of key areas and links between them. The range of topics represent the diversity of critical problems between structural biology, biochemistry and biophysics, in which lies the fertile ground of drug development, biotechnology and new materials.