According to Sagitta Peters, business manager of ICMS, the major challenges in the research area of the ICMS will be approached from different angles by the guest speakers. Both Cees Dekker (Delft University of Technology) and Ben Feringa (University of Groningen) have received the prestigious Spinoza Prize. The other speakers, Daan Frenkel (Cambridge University) and Roeland Nolte (Radboud University Nijmegen), have also earned their spurs in science. The symposium will be opened at 13.00 hours by prof.dr. Bert Meijer, scientific director of the ICMS.

The opening symposium virtually coincides with the first publication under the aegis of the new institute. Last week dr. Kees Storm, a researcher at the ICMS and the Applied Physics Department, published an article about polymer networks in Physical Review Letters. In addition, dr. Patricia Dankers will on 1 October be starting research into multifunctional medicines at Biomedical Engineering and the ICMS, supported by a Veni subsidy. Peters consequently calls the start of the institute auspicious: “There is a great deal of enthusiasm among the researchers, and we notice that we can easily build bridges between the different Departments. That is one important object of the ICMS.”

The ICMS is an initiative developed by the TU/e professors Meijer (ST, BMT), Mark Peletier (W&I), Rutger van Santen (ST) and Jaap Schouten (ST). ICMS brings scientists from various disciplines together in order to conduct research into the mechanism of self-organization, the principle behind all life on this planet. This knowledge is utilized to build molecular factories that will produce a new generation of catalysts, nanocontainers and functional materials. Apart from this, the institute wants to become a haven for international top researchers, in the form of an Advanced Study Center./.

Anyone interested in attending the symposium can register until right before it starts via icms@tue.nl.