Friedrich C. Simmel - Böcker

The 14th international meeting on DNA computation took place in the Czech Republic in Prague, June 2-9, 2008. During the last 14 years the DNA C- puting meetings have been the key forum at the boundary between computer science, biochemistry and nanotechnology where the most recent results have been presented and their authors have met. Their scienti?c program includes mathematical foundations and theoretical study of DNA computing - or b- computing in general- and recent experimental results in DNA nanotechnology, nanoscience and nanocomputing. It continues to be one of the most exciting interdisciplinary meetings, as exempli?ed by the diverse nature of contributions in this volume. The meeting began with tutorial talks by Friedrich Simmel ("Molecular - ology for Computer Scientists"), Nadrian Seeman ("Structural DNA Nanote- nology"), and Yasubumi Sakakibara ("Formal Grammars for DNA Compu- tion and Bioinformatics"). During the meeting, a number of excellent keynote speakers gave an up-to-date overview of di?erent aspects of DNA computing and biochemical information processing.Luca Cardelli talked about "Molecules as Automata," while Niles Pierce gave an exciting talk entitled "Molecular Choreography-ProgrammingNucleicAcidSelf-AssemblyandDisassemblyPa- ways."Inamorebiologicaltalk,LauraLandweberdiscussed"RNA-Guided,E- geneticProgrammingandRe-programmingofGenomicInformationinCiliates," and Ming Li gave an overview of "Modern Homology Search." The meeting was concluded by a Nanoday with beautiful presentations by Christof Niemeyer, Kurt Gothelf, Andrew Ellington and David Pine.