Sponsored by
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Sponsored by
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2002 SICB Meeting
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The goal of this symposium is to assess the state of knowledge and examine potential new directions in the integrative study of mechanisms of adhesion in biological systems and synthetic materials. The symposium will include discussions of adhesion in aquatic and terrestrial systems, in vertebrates and invertebrates. By bringing together both biologists, who study the function of adhesive structures, and engineers, who are developing adhesives based on biological designs, imaginative solutions from nature may serve as inspirations for new technologies and engineered materials may serve as models for understanding complex adhesive systems in organisms.
The Biomechanics of Adhesion symposium will cover past and current research on the biomechanics of adhesive structures in vertebrates and invertebrates. Physicists, chemists, and engineers will discuss theory, research, and applications of adhesion with a focus on the opportunities and challenges of adhesion in biological systems.
The Biomechanics of Adhesion symposium will be hosted over a three-day period as part of the 2002 meeting of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology (SICB) to be held in Anaheim, CA the days of Wed - Fri: Jan 2, 3, 4, 2002. The program will include 15 invited speakers from the U.S. and Europe who will give 40-minute oral presentations on the symposium topic with regard to function of adhesives in air and water. This symposium has been funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Controlled Biological and Biomimetic System Program (CBBS) and the Division of Vertebrate Morphology of SICB. Plans are to publish the symposium proceedings in the society’s journal, American Zoologist. All papers published in the American Zoologist will be peer reviewed and administered by the editorial office of the journal.
The Biomechanics of Adhesion symposium will advance the field by integrating research from biology, physics, and engineering. This symposium will cover advances in materials testing and modeling that are new to the biomechanics community, and may foster industrial applications of basic research on the biomechanics of adhesion. A major goal of the symposium is to identify the most productive new directions in the study of the biomechanics of adhesion, and what challenges must be overcome.
Recent advances in the understanding of intermolecular and surface forces, and in the biomechanics of adhesive structures, make this the right time to bring biomechanists, physicists, and engineers together. There has been no review on the topic of adhesion for a wide variety of animals (i.e., invertebrate and vertebrate) and different functional contexts (i.e., aquatic/terrestrial, mobile/sessile). This symposium will highlight the importance of adhesion in biological systems. A symposium that brings together a diverse assemblage of scientists on the topic can provide a vehicle for fostering collaborations and advance the field with modern approaches and technology. Without this symposium, the field of biomechanics risks missing the opportunity to contribute to the rapidly growing body of knowledge of adhesion. Biologists must take the lead in this area of research, or the engineers will leave us behind!
Kellar Autumn, Assistant Professor
Department of Biology
Lewis & Clark College
0615 SW Palatine Hill Rd.
Portland, Oregon 97219-7899
Phone: 503-768-7502; Fax: 503-768-7658
email: autumn@lclark.edu
Robert J. Full, Professor
Department of Integrative Biology
University of California at Berkeley
3060 Valley Life Sciences Building #3140
University of California
Berkeley, CA 94720-3140
email: rjfull@socrates.berkeley.edu