Water and Biological Macromolecules

Roland K. Hartmann is Professor of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Philipps-UniversitAt Marburg (Germany). He studied Biochemistry at the Freie UniversitAt Berlin where in 1988 he received the Ernst Reuter award for outstanding Ph.D. theses. His research interests include natural ribozymes, particularly ribonuclease P, interactions of RNAs with proteins and small ligands, aptamers, antisense and RNA interference. Albrecht Bindereif is Professor of Biochemistry at the University of Giessen (Germany) since 1999. He studied Biochemistry in TA1/4bingen and at the University of California, Berkeley. His postdoctoral work was done in Michael Green's laboratory at Harvard University. His research interests focus on the mechanism and regulation of mRNA splicing, both in the mammalian system and in trypanosomes. Astrid SchAn received her PhD from the Institute of Biochemistry at the University of WA1/4rzburg, and was a graduate fellow and postdoctoral associate with Dieter SAll at Yale University. She is currently a lecturer at the Institute of Biochemistry, University of Leipzig (Germany). Her research is focused on RNA metabolism and RNA-protein interactions, and the evolution of complex RNA enzymes. Eric Westhof is Professor of Biophysics at the UniversitA(c) Louis Pasteur in Strasbourg (France) since 1988. He studied in LiA]ge and Regensburg and was a Fulbright-Hays Research Fellow at the University of Wisconsin with M. Sundaralingam. His research is centered on the relationships between sequence, structure, evolution and functions of RNA molecules.