Shock compression studies examine the effects of shock waves on materials of scientific and engineering importance. Shocks can be produced by high-speed impacts or intense explosions. Study of shock waves began as a part of the nuclear weapons program, but the benefits from this new field of science have been far reaching. Some of the exciting topics that will be presented at this conference include:

**Shock Waves: A New Medical Tool (Special Session)**

Understanding shock waves in biology and medicine is a new challenge and a new opportunity for shock compression science. Biological tissues are fundamentally different and considerably more complicated than the liquids and solids normally studied by shock compression. Laser surgeries generate shock waves in living tissues, causing both mechanical and chemical changes. The shock waves can compress biological molecules and change the pH and ionic strength of the aqueous media, and can result in wanted and unwanted chemical and biological effects including irreversible damage via denaturing proteins, tearing tissues and killing living cells.

*Targeting cancer* In this symposium, Dr. Charles Lin, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard University, discusses shock waves generated by short laser pulses that can kill living cells containing absorbing nanoparticles. Nanoparticles can be tailored for a variety of uses including selective uptake by cancer cells, allowing targeted cell killing without the use of poisonous chemotherapy agents.

*How shocks force tissue* Professor Hyojin Kim of Chungnam University will describe a new approach to understanding the molecular basis for shock compression of biological systems, the "energy landscape" approach. He will present data where shock waves are used to study large amplitude motions of proteins and will discuss the first observation of viscoelasticity in shocked proteins.

*Needle-free drug delivery* Dr. Ap
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Contact: Stephan J Bless
bless@iat.utexas.edu
512-471-9060
American Physical Society
23-Jul-2003

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