Bioelectrochemistry

Bioelectrochemistry conferences. journals and texts are be­ ginning to proliferate and to attract researchers and scholars with a bent for multiple disciplines, electrochemistry, electrical engineering, physics, biology and medicine. With the development of highly sophisticated apparatus, new techniques and embracing skills, bioelectrochemistry represents the area where searching questions can now be asked about processes of Life itself, not only how sub­ stances interact in vivo but what distinguishes animate from in­ animate matter. During this Joint Seminar, for example, it was pointed out that a human liver alive appeared mauve while in the isolated state it is brown, even though it is capable of a comprehensive range of biochem­ ical activities ordinarily encountered in laboratory "in vivo" sit­ uations. Bioelectrochemical studies are beginning to elucidate the growth of bone, the genesis and division of living cells, the transfer of energy and matter from one compartment to other compartments in a living system, with great promise for curative and preventative medicine. The organizers of this Seminar have been truly fortunate to be able to bring together workers who have been intimately associated with the origins and development of some of the more powerful concepts which have stimulated progress in the field of bioelectrochemistry. These include the solid state, semiconduction and structured water. By a happy circumstance a number of Australian researchers in this field were present in the United States. or en route thereto, at about the proposed dates of the Seminar.