Oxford University, UK

Prof. Jacob Klein is the Dr. Lee’s Professor of Chemistry and head of department, Physical and Theoretical Chemistry, at the University of Oxford. He was previously on the faculty of the Cavendish Laboratory (Department of Physics) in Cambridge University, and subsequently the Herman Mark Professor of Polymer Physics at the Weizmann Institute, Israel (where he still runs a small laboratory).

His interests are in the broad area of soft matter and especially its behaviour at surfaces and interfaces, especially in systems of biological interest. He developed novel methods including infra-red microdensitometry and nuclear reaction analysis for studying ultra-slow diffusion processes, particularly of entangled molecules. In addition he developed state-of-the-art surface force balances providing fundamental information on steric and frictional interactions at interfaces down to the Ångström level, mainly now applied to biologically relevant systems. He is responsible for new developments of these methods for application to nano-scale mechanical stresses in cells. He is on the Editorial Board of several journals in the field, and has received many honours, including the Charles Vernon Boys Prize of the Institute of Physics, U.K., the Ford Prize for Polymer Physics of the American Physical Society, and the Award Lecture of the Japanese Chemical Society.

Dr Robert K Thomas is Aldrichian Praelector in Chemistry at the University of Oxford since 1999. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1998 and has been the recipient of various Royal Society of Chemistry awards, including the Tilden Lectureship in 1996. He has pioneered the development and application of neutron reflection as a tool for investigating interfaces involving soft matter and proteins, and has published some 250 papers in this area.