The Modeling & Design of Molecular Materials 2022 (MDMM 2022) conference is an interdisciplinary meeting that will be devoted to the various aspects of conceiving materials with pre-defined properties. The key term is “molecular material” which in the context of the conference means drugs and drug carriers (focused on cancer), catalysts with emphasis on photocatalysts (e.g. solar energy conversion) or theozymes (theoretically designed biocatalysts), materials for hydrogen storage (green fuel), conductive polymers (e.g. electronics, biosensors), etc. Nowadays, computer modeling seems to be a crucial step for the rational design of materials with demanded properties. Thus, during this prospective event we hope to gather specialists who develop computational methods useful in the computer-aided design of materials as well as those who employ molecular modeling at the very early stage of their projects and for whom computational approach leads eventually to practical solutions.
The present conference is a continuation of a 8 biannual MDMM meeting series which has been ignited in 2004 by Prof. Sokalski with proceedings published in the Journal of Molecular Modeling (165 papers cited 2348 times) and also in a Springer book volume, as an extended form of some lectures (Molecular materials with specific interactions: modeling and design. (Sokalski WA (ed) (2007) Book series: Leszczynski J (ed) Challenges and advances in computational chemistry and physics, vol 4. Springer, Berlin). Over years, the conference has developed into the well-established tradition of alternating Polish–Czech–American workshops involving Profs. Sokalski, Burda and Leszczynski from Technical University of Wrocław (Poland), Charles University in Prague (Czech Republic), and Jackson State University (USA), respectively, as the main organizers of meetings taking place in Lower Silesia in Poland (MDMM), Czech Republic (MIB) and Jackson, Mississippi, USA (CCTCC). Now, when Prof. Sokalski partly retired from teaching, he gave over the continuation of MDMM to a bit younger generation of scientists represented by Profs. Rak and Michalak from University of Gdańsk (Poland) and Jagiellonian University (Poland), respectively.
In 2022 the 9th edition of Modeling & Design of Molecular Materials will be held in Gdańsk (Poland) at the Baltic Campus, a modern academic center comprising most departments of the University of Gdańsk. Hopefully, the current meeting will gather not only computational chemists, but also physicochemists, material chemists, photochemists, etc., i.e. all those who not only develop but also use computational chemistry in their everyday research, from all over the world. The conference should illustrate well both the challenges in the field of molecular modeling and the significant progress that has been achieved in the last few years towards solving practical problems in materials science, biotechnology and medicine.
Prof. Janusz Rak
Chair of MDMM 2022