Order, Disorder, and Aggregation in Protein Folding Dynamics

The concepts and methods of protein folding have diversified from the original "protein folding problem" into many rapidly advancing areas in physics, chemistry, and biology. A main purpose of this conference is to bring together researchers from these areas and in particular to foster the contact between experiment, theory, and simulation, since many of the key challenges in the field of protein folding dynamics can only be resolved in close collaboration between these disciplines.

Conceptually, the areas covered will range from elementary mechanisms, such as fast events in folding and the behavior of unfolded and intrinsically disordered proteins, to processes involving large molecular machinery, such as folding on the ribosome. The program will also address many of the resulting complex phenomena, including protein aggregation, intracellular phase transitions, and regulatory and evolutionary processes. Addressing these questions requires a versatile toolbox of techniques, and the methodological advances will be another important topic of the conference, both from the experimental and the theoretical side: from single-molecule techniques, spectroscopic methods with high time resolution, and experiments in live cells on the experimental side, to the latest developments in large-scale computing, models at different levels of coarse-graining, and analytical theory for describing biomolecular structure and dynamics. These developments have a large impact far beyond the protein folding field itself and fertilize many other areas of research. The conference will encourage interactions between junior scientists and established leaders in the field, e.g. through abstract-selected presentations and posters, and by means of the Gordon Research Seminar preceding the conference.