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COST Action TD0802 Training School Computer Simulation Methods for Dendrimers

General Scope

Hyperbranched polymers, including dednrimers, attract a lot of interest recently. Already for many years there is an intensive worldwide research activity to achieve and demonstrate the suitability of dendrimers for nanotechnology applications, including gene and drug delivery. This activity extends over several disciplines, ranging from synthetic organic chemistry to clinical medicine. As with other complex chemical systems, the challenge of finding suitable structure-property relations within the large chemical search space, may be significantly guided by a molecular-physics approach that uses the right generic level of description. The special chemical dendron topology and core-shell structure, the combination of hydrophilic, hydrophobic, specific and ionic interactions, and the need to consider the dynamics of complex formation, makes this a particular scientific challenge for chemical physics.

The aim of the school

The central goal of the 3-day school is to introduce the simulation methods which can be applied to study hyperbranched polymers, on different scales, bridging the gap between different levels of description. The school will take place at the Department of Applied Physics, Eindhoven University of Technology, from April 12 to April 14.

Topics that will be covered:

• Fully-atomistic and coarse grained molecular dynamics (MD)
• Brownian dynamics (BD)
• Dissipative particle dynamics (DPD)

The lectures will remain at an introductory level, while for each topic practical exercises will follow