Biosensors and Bioelectronics 25 (2009) 539–542 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Biosensors and Bioelectronics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/bios Proceedings preface MIP2008 Kobe, Japan, September 2008 The Fifth International Workshop on Molecularly Imprinted Polymers was chaired and organised by Professor Toshifumi Takeuchi (Kobe University, Japan) and held in Kobe, Japan from 7th to 11th September 2008 under the auspices of www.mipworkshop.org, The Society for Molecular Imprinting and Kobe University. MIP2008 was eagerly awaited since this was to be the first time that the workshop was to be held outside of Europe and as such represented an important watershed in the evolution of the MIP workshop series of meetings. Given this setting the months leading up to MIP2008 were an anxious time for the organising committee but as September approached and conference abstracts and registration forms rolled in, it became clear this was going to be the most popular MIP workshop meeting to date and by the dawning of the opening session 190 abstracts had been submitted by around 250 delegates from more than 20 countries. The open- ing reception was held in the Kobe Tokyu Inn, Kobe where arriving delegates were treated to excellent local cuisine whilst Professor Takeuchi and his organising team welcomed them to Kobe and MIP2008. The opening session commenced with a plenary lecture from Klaus Mosbach (Lund University, Sweden) who took the opportu- nity to evaluate progress in molecular imprinting over the previous eight years. This was followed by invited lectures from Toshifumi Takeuchi (Kobe University, Japan) and Börje Sellergren (Dort- mund University, Germany) who discussed ‘Molecularly imprinted co-factor-coupled binding sites’ and ‘Recent advances in pep- tide imprinting’ respectively. Prior to lunch further invited talks were given by Takashi Miyata (Kansai University, Japan), Oliver Brüggemann (Linz University, Austria) and Ji-Young Chang (Seoul National University, Korea) who covered the areas of ‘Biomolecule- responsive hydrogels’, ‘Controlled release of active substances’ and ‘Core-shell type molecularly imprinted particles’. Following lunch Itamar Willner (Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel) gave an enlightening plenary lecture on ‘DNA imprinting, electropolymer- ized thin films and aggregated nanoparticles’. This was followed by three further invited talks by Jun Matsui (Konan University, Japan), Sergey Piletsky (Cranfield University, UK) and Ken Shimizu (Univer- sity of South Carolina, USA) who spoke on the topics of ‘Molecularly imprinted nano-polymer composites’, ‘Monoclonal MIP nanoparti- cles’ and ‘Stochastic lattice model simulations of MIPs’. The first day included sixteen further contributed talks with a focussed session dedicated to young scientists. The second day commenced with a plenary lecture on ‘New developments in the construction of enzyme models by molecular imprinting’ from Günter Wulff (University of Dusseldorf, Germany) and invited lectures by Mitsuru Akashi (Osaka University, Japan) and J. Liu (Jilin University, China) who spoke on the subjects of ‘Tem- plate polymerisation of methyl methacrylates’ and ‘Construction of the active site of glutathione peroxidase by molecular imprint- ing’, the later being reported in this issue. Following lunch Ian Nicholls (Kalmar University, Sweden), Andrew Mayes (University of East Anglia, UK) and Buddy Green (Semorex Inc., Israel) gave excellent lectures on ‘Rational design’, again contained in this issue, ‘Nano-MIPs’ and ‘Chemically reactive MIPs’. The afternoon session commenced with a plenary talk by Makoto Komiyama (Uni- versity of Tokyo, Japan) on ‘Imprinted cyclodextrins as synthetic antibodies’ which was followed by three further invited talks by Lars Andersson (AstraZeneca, Sweden), Jun Haginaka (Mukogawa Women’s University, Japan) and Maria Kempe (Lund Univeristy, Sweden) on ‘Analytical separations’, ‘MIPs in pharmaceutical and environmental analysis’ and ‘Matrix effects on the binding of Peni- cillin G’. A split session then followed offering a wide range of contributed papers. The day was brought to a close by three invited talks by Claudio Baggiani (University of Torino, Italy), Michael Whitcombe (Cranfield university, UK) and Le Ye (Lund Univer- sity, Sweden) who spoke on ‘Peptides as functional monomers’, ‘The influence of polymerisation conditions on MIP performance’ and ‘Molecularly imprinted nanoparticles, microbeads and fibrous structures’. That evening the delegates attended a truly splendid MIP 2008 Gala Dinner at the Japanese Sake Brewery, Shushinkann. The third day was a short one for the delegates with brief oral and poster sessions being followed by organised excursions to the wonderful Himegi Castle. Toyoki Kunitake (University of Kitakyushu, Japan) gave a plenary lecture entitled ‘Molecular imprinting in ultrathin films of metal oxides’ which was followed by two invited talks by Chris Allender (Cardiff University, UK) and Takaomi Kobayashi (Nagaoka University of Technology, Japan) on ‘Exploitation of MIPs in biphasic systems’ and ‘Molecularly imprinted nano-sphere polymer scaffolds’. The final day of the conference opened with a plenary lecture by Ken Shea (University of California, USA) on the subject of ‘Recent advances in synthetic receptors for biological macromolecules’, the remainder of the morning session being dedicated to invited talks by Karsten Haupt (Compiegne University of Technology, France), David Spivak (Louisiana State Univeristy, USA), N. Minoura (Tokyo University of Technology, Japan), Mingdi Yan (Portland State uni- versity, USA) and Jun Sumaoka (University of Tokyo, Japan) who spoke on the subjects of ‘Nanostructurered MIPs’, ‘Super aptamers for protein imprinting’, ‘DNA imprinting in gels’, ‘MIP microarrays’ and ‘Recognition of bioactive oligopeptides in water’. The final ses- sion of MIP2008 was used to air a wide range of contributed papers with the meeting being finally brought to a close by Ken Shea. 0956-5663/$ – see front matter © 2009 Published by Elsevier B.V. doi:10.1016/j.bios.2009.08.001