The first issue of the first volume will be sent free-of-charge to all participants of the 2000 Gordon Research Conference on Macromolecular Structure and Cell Function.

The information provided below is tentative. Comments are welcome: HW@Bio.VU.NL

For a conference on the subject matter of the journal, please refer to: http://www.bio.vu.nl/grc2000/index.html

For the prepublications click on: http://jjj.biochem.sun.ac.za/home/HW/BIOCOMPLEXITYWEB/TOCFrame.htm

ISSN: 1567-8466; http://www.bio.vu.nl/grc2000/biocomplexity.html

Hans V. Westerhoff

BioCentrum Amsterdam, NL, EU and Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study, South Africa

Confirmed editors

Living cells owe this function to properties that arise in macromolecular interactions. The nonlinear nature of the macromolecular interactions makes it a challenge to understand these emerging properties. Yet this understanding, within the functional context, is the ambition of "BioComplexity". To realise this ambition precise experimentation, possibly inside the living system, should be accompanied by quantitative analysis. It is the tenet of "BioComplexity" that at the various levels of emergence, similar principles appear to operate. The Journal focuses on the understanding of these principles.

 "BioComplexity" will publish experimental and theoretical contributions (and preferably combinations thereof), concerning emerging properties, for instance in the following areas:

• Macromolecular Organization and Cell Function (http://www.bio.vu.nl/grc2000/index.html)
• BioThermoKinetics (http://www.sun.ac.za/biochem/btk/index.html)
• Computational tools and technology for Systems Cell Biology
• Mechanisms of free energy transduction through domain interactions within proteins, Coupled molecular motors
• Flux induced structures (e.g., cell infrastructure, chaperonins, DNA supercoiling)
• Integrative Molecular and Cellular Bioinformatics; Integrative Functional Genomics
• Non equilibrium regulation of gene expression, e.g. by maintenance of energized DNA structures
• Macromolecular crowding and living cells
• New technologies to inspect emergent properties in living systems
• Molecular neural networks in living cells
• Metabolite and signal channeling; scaffolding
• Maintenance and replication of cell structures
• Epigenetic control of gene expression; gene silencing mechanisms
• Hysteresis and self organization in and between living cells
• Autonomous oscillations (cell-cycle, calcium, glycolytic, cell-cell signalling), entrainment
• Cell-cell communication; from cells to tissues and ecosystems
• Cancer as network disease
• The behaviour of individual molecules in interaction
• The special properties of heterogeneous biological systems away from equilibrium
• Engineering the complex, live cell
• Metabolic and Hierarchical Control Analysis
• Intracellular active transport of macromolecules
• Catalysis by non-equilibrium structures (e.g., enzymes catalyzing processes in a metastable state)
• where the living cell differs from its in vitro analogues (‘Entering the living cell’)

Typically, an issue of "BioComplexity" will contain a review of one aspect of the field, a review of new experimental techniques, plus a series of papers with the most recent primary results.

All contributions will be peer-reviewed by independent referees including at least one member of the Editorial Board. The reviewing process will proceed largely electronically, ensuring short publication times. References to websites are encouraged. Once accepted, papers will be prepublished on the BioComplexity-prepublication website (http://www.bio.vu.nl/grc2000/biocomplexity-prepub.html) until the definitive paper version appears in the hard copy of the journal.

We are pleased to announce the new journal BioComplexity, which will commence publication in 2001. Please submit your article as an attached document by E-MAIL to HW@Bio.VU.NL, mentioning ‘BioComplexity Submission’ on the Subject line. pdf files are preferred. Word97, WpWIN8 are acceptable provided figures have been patched into the main text. Please check that reception is acknowledged. Alternatively five paper copies of the article, as well as an electronic version on disk should be submitted to:

Hans V. Westerhoff

Editor-in-Chief, BioComplexity

Department of Molecular Cell Physiology, BioCentrum Amsterdam

De Boelelaan 1087

NL-1081 HV Amsterdam

The Netherlands, EU

 Tel: +31 (0) 20-444-7230, Fax: +31 (0) 20-444-7229, E-mail: HW@Bio.VU.NL

Please do not hesitate to contact the publisher if you have any questions, comments or possible publication proposals:

Myriam.Poort@wkap.nl

$ ================================================================$

REPLY FORM BioComplexity ISSN: 1567-8466

˜ Please send me full instructions for authors

˜ I intend to submit an article about: _________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

___________________________________________________________________________

˜ Please send me a sample copy upon publication

Name:

Institution:

Department:

E-mail address:

Myriam Poort

Publishing Editor, ‘BioComplexity’

Kluwer Academic Publishers

PO Box 17

3300 AA Dordrecht

The Netherlands

E-mail: Myriam.Poort@wkap.nl Tel: +31 (0) 78-639-2312 Fax: +31 (0) 78-639-2377