At the week-long interactive conference, some 20 leading researchers reported their most pertinent results, confronting each other and an audience of more than 150 specialists from a wide range of scientific disciplines, including structural and molecular biology, biophysics, computer science, mathematics, and theoretical physics. The fourteen papers — and audience interaction — are edited and illustrated versions of the transcribed oral presentations.

The proceedings have been selected for coverage in:
• Biochemistry & Biophysics Citation Index™
• Index to Scientific & Technical Proceedings (ISTP CDROM version / ISI Proceedings)
• CC Proceedings — Biomedical, Biological & Agricultural Sciences

Contents:

• Evolution-Based Genome Analysis: An Alternative to Analyze Folding and Function in Proteins (S Benner)
• Conformation of Charged Polymers: Polyelectrolytes and Polyampholytes (J-F Joanny)
• Statistically Derived Rules for RNA Folding (M Zuker)
• Experimental Approaches to RNA Folding (S Woodson)
• Some Questions Concerning RNA Folding (F Michel)
• RNA Folding in Ribosome Assembly (J R Williamson)
• From RNA Sequences to Folding Pathways and Structures: A Perspective (H Isambert)
• An Evolutionary Perspective on the Determinants of Protein Function and Assembly (O Lichtarge)
• Some Residues are more Equal than Others: Application to Protein Classification and Structure Prediction (A Kister & I Gelfand)
• Structure-Function Relationships in Polymerases (M Delarue)
• The Protein-Folding Nucleus: From Simple Models to Real Proteins (L Mirny)
• Chaperonin-Mediated Protein Folding (D Thirumalai)
• Virus Assembly and Maturation (J E Johnson)
• The Animal in the Machine: Is There a Geometric Program in the Genetic Program? (A Danchin)