This workshop focuses on two specific topics (“Structural Rheology” and “Biomembranes and Vesicles”), which are attracting growing attentions recently in soft matter physics fields.

The topic of the first week (9th-13th Aug.) is “Structural Rheology”. Very fragile and highly deformable features of soft matter are attributed to the mesoscopic length scale of the topology. Both linear and non-linear rheology can be also strongly affected by the existence of mesoscopic structures. The rheological properties can drastically change when the internal structures are destroyed or formed under external fields. We call this challenging area as “Structural Rheology”, which is a new terminology.

In the second week (23rd-27th Aug.), we focus on “Biomembrane and Vesicles”. Cells and lipid vesicles can exhibit large morphological changes induced by flows, membrane phase separations, and chemical reactions. These membrane deformations are relevant to the biological response in living cells. We will focus on latest experimental and theoretical (including simulation) results of these two topics and explore its new directions and possibilities in the future.