Providing a glimpse into the future, the young scientists contributing here were considered to be the most important for tomorrow's chemistry and materials science. They present the state of the art in their particular fields of research, with topics ranging from new synthetic pathways and nanotechnology to green chemistry. Of major interest to organic chemists, materials scientists and biochemists.

Bruno Pignataro, born in Bologna in 1972, is Professor of Physical Chemistry at the University of Palermo. He received his degree in chemistry in 1995 from the University of Catania and his PhD in materials science five years later. He has helped establish a wide network of international collaborations and organized more than 10 meetings at national and international level, including coordinating the Young Chemists Group of the Italian Chemical Society and chairing the first editions of the European Young Chemist Award. He is a referee for several leading chemistry and materials journals, has more than 70 scientific publications and some 90 conference communications to his name, along with several invited lectures. Professor Pignataro's research interests focus on the related fields of the physical chemistry of molecular surfaces and soft nanotechnologies.

PART ONE SELF-ORGANIZATION, NANOSCIENCE AND NANOTECHNOLOGY Subcomponent Self-Assembly as a Route to New Structures and Materials Molecular Metal Oxides and Clusters as Building Blocks for Functional Nanoscale Architectures and Potential Nanosystems Nanostructured Porous Materials: Building Matter from the Bottom Up Strategies Toward Hierarchically Structured Optoelectronically Active Polymers Mimicking Nature: Bio-inspired Models of Copper Proteins From the Past to the Future of Rotaxanes Multiphoton Processes and Nonlinear Optics in Lanthanide Complexes Organic Molecular Nanotechnology: Light-emitting Organic Nanoaggregates from Functionalized para-Quaterphenylenes Plant Viral Capsids as Programmable Nanobuilding Blocks New Calorimetric Approaches to the Study of Soft Matter 3D Organization PART TWO ORGANIC SYNTHESIS, CATALYSIS AND MATERIALS Naphthalenediimides as Photoactive and Electroactive Components in Supramolecular Chemistry Coordination Chemistry of Phosphole Ligands Substituted with Pyridyl Moieties: From Catalysis to Nonlinear Optics and Supramolecular Assemblies Selective Hydrogen Transfer Reactions over Supported Copper Catalysts Leading to Simple, Safe, and Clean Protocols for Organic Synthesis Selective Oxido-Reductive Processes by Nucleophilic Radical Addition under Mild Conditions PART THREE HEALTH, FOOD, AND ENVIRONMENT Speeding Up Discovery Chemistry: New Perspectives in Medicinal Chemistry Overview of Protein-Tannin Interactions Photochemical Transformation Processes of Environmental Significance