In the Spring of 2002, a group of scientists met in Massa Marittima, Italy, to discuss the topic of ‘Self-Assembly – the Future’. This was an interdisciplinary meeting that included participation by physicists, chemists, biologists and chemical engineers; experts in the field from all over the world.
After the meeting, the participants agreed to write up their papers in the form of chapters suitable for a book. This book presents the 47 collected papers which resulted from that exercise. The book begins with a section containing nine general papers on the subject, and the remaining papers are grouped under the headings: novel systems and applications; polymers, surfactants and liquid crystals; advances in fundamental understanding, biological systems; and micelle/vesicle systems.
The book will be a useful addition to the literature in this important area of research and provides readers with a helpful account of the state of the field of self-assembly.
