Editorial pubs.acs.org/Langmuir
Creating and Controlling Biointerfaces Bioconjugate Chemistry has undergone major changes under the leadership of Vince Rotello, the current journal Editor-in-Chief. After celebrating its 30th anniversary Langmuir, also, is retooling, poised to be “The Journal of Interface Science”. I met Vince Rotello a few months ago. Our conversation quickly moved to a topic close to our hearts and spirits: biointerfaces. They are part of our personal research areas, and, more importantly, they are included in the portfolio of both Langmuir and Bioconjugate Chemistry. Musing on the word “biointerface”, biology comes to mind: the high surface to volume ratio of a living cell immediately thrusts the interface into the spotlight: in the transport of molecules across interfaces for energy and material to drive intracellular processes, in the detection of molecules in the extracellular environment for signaling and locomotive response through interfacial binding, and even in the process of cellular replication. In short, interfaces are involved in the majority of the processes that define life. Biological processes are driven with outstanding precision by femtomoles of molecules acting in an environment subjected to the unique thermodynamic and kinetic constraints imposed by interfaces. New characterization tools and new chemistries are needed to understand biointerfacial processes and to harness them for implementation in nanodevices. Articles published in Langmuir and in Bioconjugate Chemistry report the latest advances in this fascinating area; Langmuir articles focus on the fundamental aspects of novel interfacial chemistries and processes created by the constraints imposed by biology, and articles published in Bioconjugate Chemistry report new chemical reaction pathways relevant to the biointerface. This complementarity of our two journals is demonstrated in the virtual issue “Creating and Controlling Biointerfaces” unveiled today and can be found at the following site: http://pubs.acs.org/ page/vi/creating-controlling-biointerfaces.html. I am happy that our newest Senior Editor, Rob Corn, agreed to be coauthor of this editorial and would like to acknowledge the help that he provided in organizing the virtual issue. His excellent choices of some of the best Langmuir articles in the area of biointerfaces reflect his own experience, good judgment, and knowledge of the literature.
The articles selected exemplify the interdisciplinarity of this field and the wide variety of complex systems and devices that can be fabricated within the context of the biointerface model. We believe that these papers will stimulate new ideas and incite you in the future to select our journals to report your latest and most important accomplishments in this area!
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Françoise Winnik, (Editor-in-Chief, Langmuir) Robert Corn, (Senior Editor, Langmuir)
AUTHOR INFORMATION
Notes
Views expressed in this editorial are those of the authors and not necessarily the views of the ACS.
Published: October 20, 2015 © 2015 American Chemical Society
11151
DOI: 10.1021/acs.langmuir.5b03739 Langmuir 2015, 31, 11151−11151
