The Physico-Chemical Basis of Self-Assembling Structures -- Supramolecular Assembly of Biological Molecules -- Simple Examples of Cell Motility -- Statistical Physics of Unzipping DNA -- Can Theory Predict Two-State Protein Folding Rates? An Experimental Perspective -- Copolymers with Long-Range Correlations: Sequence Design Near a Surface -- Novel approach to the study of rotational and translational diffusion in crystals -- The Bacterial Flagellar Motor -- Self-Assembly and Dynamics of Magnetic Holes -- Structures in Molecular Networks -- Oscillating Gene Expressions in Regulatory Networks -- Transport Properties of Segmented Polymers and Non-Spherical Nanoparticles Studied by Brownian Dynamics Simulations -- Cytokinesis: The Initial Linear Phase Crosses Over to a Multiplicity of Non-Linear Endings -- Information Dynamics in Living Systems.

The book reviews the current experimental and theoretical knowledge of the synergism between modern physics, soft condensed matter and biology, presenting a thorough discussion of the relative role of the various fundamental interactions in such systems: electrostatic, hydrophobic, steric, conformational, van der Waals, etc. These competing interactions influence the form and topology of soft and biological matter, like polymers and proteins, leading to hierarchical structures in self-assembling systems and folding patterns sometimes described in terms of chirality, braids and knots. Finally, the competing interactions influence various bioprocesses like genetic regulation and biological evolution taking place in systems like biopolymers, macromolecules and cell membranes. The authors include theoretical physicists, soft condensed matter experimentalists, biological physicists, and molecular biologists - all leaders in their respective fields. Aside from the need to gain new, fundamental insights, the subject area is also of great importance for many applications, in that self-assembly and hierarchical assembly are important features to achieve functionality on multiple length scales. Applications range from the nanoscopic (e.g., biomolecular material and copolymeric mesophases) to the microscopic (all organic microelectronics) to the macroscopic (high-performance structural composites).