Subject: Workshop Monte Carlo Approach to Biopolymers and Protein Folding

From: Daniel Hoffmann <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 15:32:48 +0200

Monte Carlo Approach to Biopolymers and Protein Folding

		      3-5 December 1997
	  HLRZ, Forschungszentrum Juelich, Germany

The HLRZ Supercomputing Center in Juelich has a tradition of
organizing an annual international workshop on an important topic to
which Computational Physics makes a major contribution.  After
"Supercomputers in Brain Research" (1994), "Traffic and Granular Flow"
(1995), "Friction, Arching, Contact Dynamics" (1996), this year the
topic will be "Monte Carlo Approach to Biopolymers and Protein
Folding".

The main emphasis will be on protein folding. This is widely
recognized as one of the main problems in biological physics. But
related fields will also be covered, ranging from supercoiling of DNA
and simulations of semi-dilute solutions of homopolymers to relaxation
in glassy systems. From the technical side, the main emphasis will be
on Monte Carlo simulations.  Traditionally, the field of protein
folding is dominated by Molecular Dynamics simulations.  Monte Carlo
methods are less constrained in the possible moves, and recent years
have seen a steady stream of novel methods which actually exploit this
freedom. One purpose of the workshop will be to find out whether
progress in Monte Carlo methods will ultimately allow to determine the
structure of large proteins from their amino acid sequences. Topics
which will be discussed include therefore algorithms for simulating
equilibrium and nonequilibrium problems, actual simulations of model
and realistic biopolymers, theories of folding pathways,
determinations of effective potentials, statistical concepts derived
from disordered systems, and data-based approaches to protein folding.

Invited speakers are:

 H.-S. Chan          U. Hansmann  W. Krauth            D. Thirumalai  
 P. Derreumaux 	     D. Hoffmann  H. Meirovitch        R. Zimmer   	 
 E. Domany 	     A. Irbaeck   H. Orland             	 
 D. Frenkel 	     M. Karplus   A.Z. Panagiotopoulos  	 
 W.F. van Gunsteren  A. Kolinski  E. Shakhnovich        	 

Participants are invited to present their research at a poster session. 

Organizers:

Peter Grassberger  Gerard T. Barkema  Walter Nadler 

For more information see
http://w3.hlrz.kfa-juelich.de/HLRZ/Workshops.html

On behalf of the organizers
Daniel Hoffmann