The International Society of Quantum Biology and Pharmacology, is organizing the Zerner Conference, in New Orleans, Louisiana, on August 17-19, 2000.

Registration and abstract submission for poster presentations are still open. Articles will be published in the Proceedings (International Journal of Quantum Chemistry) of The International Society of Quantum Biology and Pharmacology.

Organizer: Dr. Peter Politzer, Department of Chemistry, University of New Orleans.

Plenary Sessions and Speakers:

• Enzyme Function:
  • David Beratan (University of Pittsburgh)
  • Tim Clark (University of Erlangen) - Hybrid QM/MM Simulations of Enzyme Reaction Mechanisms.
  • Gilda Loew (Molecular Research Institute, Palo Alto) - Homology Modeling and Substrate Binding Study of Human CYP450 Enzymes.
  • Kenneth Merz (Penn State University) - Combined QM/MM Methodologies and Applications.
• Biochemical Nanocomputer Technologies:
  • Robert Birge (University of Connecticut) - Protein-Based Volumetric Memories and Associative Processors.
  • John Reif (Duke University) - Recent Advances and New Applications for Biomolecular Computations.
  • Joel Schnur (Naval Research Laboratory) - Sub-Micron Lipid Tubules and their Applications.
• Protein Structure:
  • Harold Scheraga (Cornell University) - Prediction of Protein Structure by Global Optimization of a Potential Function.
  • Eugene Shakhnovich (Harvard University) - Universally-Conserved Positions in Protein Folds: Reading Evolutionary Information about Protein Stability, Folding Kinetics and Function.
  • Jeffrey Skolnick (Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, St. Louis) - Prediction of Structure and Function on a Genomic Scale.
  • Devarajan Thirumalai (University of Maryland) - Stretching Proteins.
• Proton Pumps:
  • Daniel Borgis (Universit=E9 Pierre et Marie Curie, Paris) - Transport and Spectroscopy of Protons in Aqueous Media.
  • Mark Tuckerman (New York University) - Identifying Quantum Effects in Aqueous Proton Transport and in "Intermediate-Barrier" Intramolecular Proton Transfer.
  • Arieh Warshel (University of Southern California) - Computer Simulations of Proton Transfer Processes in Proteins. The Energetics of Proton Translocation Processes.
• Membrane Proteins:
  • Frank Blaney (SmithKline Beecham) - Modelling of Voltage-Gated Calcium Channels and their Interactions with Small Peptide Neurotoxins.
  • Benoit Roux (Cornell Medical School) - Theoretical Studies of Ion Permeation.
  • Peter Tieleman (Oxford University) - Molecular Dynamics Simulations of Antimicrobial Peptides: From Membrane Binding to Transmembrane Channels.
  • Harel Weinstein (Mt. Sinai Medical School, New York) - Computer Experiments Reveal Signaling Mechanisms in Membrane Proteins: From Structural Motifs to Functional Microdomains.
• Modelling of Electrostatic Interactions:
  • Sergio Hassan (Mt. Sinai Medical School, New York) - Description of Solvent Effects in Proteins: A New and General Continuum Approach for Structure Calculations.
  • Ferran Sanz (IMIM/Universitat Pompeu Fabra) - Automatic Exploration of Similarities between Distributions of Molecular Interaction Potentials.
  • Rebecca Wade (European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Heidelberg) - Electrostatic Interactions in Protein-Protein Association: Insights from Brownian Dynamics Simulations and Protein Interaction Property Similarity Analysis.