: ? The Gordon Research Conference on the Physics and Chemistry of Microfluidics will be held from July 15th through July 20th, 2007 at Waterville Valley Resort, New Hampshire. Prof. Sabeth Verpoorte of the University of Groningen (Groningen, The Netherlands) will act as Chair for this conference. The conference Vice-Chairs will be Prof. Juan G. Santiago (Stanford University, Palo Alto, California) and Dr. Amy E. Herr (Sandia National Laboratories, Livermore, California). To date, the majority of life science applications for microfluidics technology have involved nucleic acid analysis, with emphasis on DNA separations, amplification, hybridization assays, and their integration into Microsystems incorporating a high degree of sample handling. The range of microfluidic application areas has recently started to grow rapidly to include more cell and tissue engineering and analysis, as well as proteomics-driven protein analysis in complex samples. There has also been a rapid expansion into the sub-micrometer and even nanometer domain from a technology point of view. All of these areas are of interest to NIH, particularly programs such as NIBIB and NIGMS. This conference will focus special attention on micro- and nanofluidic applications involving proteins, cells, and tissue, in sessions such as Functional Materials, Novel Analysis and Detection Strategies, Nanobiotechnology, and Working with Cells in Microfluidic Devices. Other sessions are devoted to a discussion of more fundamental physical and chemical phenomena at the micro- and nanoscale and development of technologies to better assess these behaviours. While these sessions perhaps do not directly address NIH programs, developments in these areas will ultimately be crucial for improved micro- and nanotechnologies that facilitate life science research. Since microfluidics is a highly multidisciplinary field, participants will be from many diverse backgrounds including bioengineering, chemistry, pharmacology, medical biology, physics, chemical engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering and materials science. ? Based on data from other conferences in this series, academia, government, and industry will be represented, with the majority of participants from the academic sector. A major goal of this conference will be to encourage interaction and challenging discussion among all these participants from diverse backgrounds, to promote the further application of microfluidics technologies for the elucidation of complex biological problems. ? ? ?
