Event

The van der Waals – London Discussions

  • Location

    Université de Luxembourg, Luxembourg Campus Limpertsberg

    Bâtiment des Sciences 0.03, 162a Av. de la Faiencerie

    1511, Luxembourg, Luxembourg

  • Topic(s)
    Life Sciences & Medicine
  • Type(s)
    Conferences, Free of charge, In-person event

About the conference

The vdW/L discussions are conceived as a forum for scientists committed to the development of new theoretical, fundamental, methodological, instrumental and metrologic ways to characterize and study noncovalent interactions. As such it is an interdisciplinary forum that gives spaces for thorough discussions and debates around recent results, issues and emerging concepts.

Sessions overview

This workshop is designed to foster lively discussions and the exchange of ideas, with the following session formats:

  • Invited Talks: 25-minute presentations followed by 15 minutes of discussion, providing in-depth insights and engaging dialogue.
  • Contributed Talks: 10-minute presentation and 10 minutes Q&A, offering opportunities to share and refine emerging ideas. Abstract submission was closed on 15. June 2025. No more contributed talks are accepted.
  • Poster Session: An interactive space to showcase ongoing research, spark conversations, and collaborate with peers. Abstract submission was closed on 31. August 2025. No more abstract are accepted.

Topics

  • Experimental techniques
  • vdW/L in materials
  • vdW/L in (bio)molecular systems
  • Long-range interactions description by machine learning
  • Long-range interactions datasets

Programme

12:30 AM Registration

13:00 AM Opening words Prof. Dr. Alexandre Tkatchenko

13:10 AM Prof. Jean-Pierre Djukic Predicting Reactivity from Density

13:50 AM Prof. Berta Fernández Rodríguez The Functional Group Correction approach versus machine learning

14:30 AM Prof. Christoph Bannwarth Non-covalent interactions in molecular photocatalysis and photophysics

15:10 PM Coffee break

15:30 PM Prof. Melanie Schnell Structure and dynamics of weakly bound molecular clusters

16:10 PM Dr. Wei Liu Van der Waals effects in surface and interface chemistry

16:50 PM Poster session

18:00 PM Day clossing

9:00 AM Prof. Giovanni Bistoni Understanding London Dispersion Effects in Molecular Chemistry with Local Coupled Cluster Methods

9:40 AM Prof. Maria Fyta Assessing van der Waals interactions in hybrid systems made of biomolecules and materials

10:00 AM Dr. Martin Michael Müller Protein-membrane interactions with a twist

10:20 PM Coffe break

10:40 AM Prof. Ángel Martín Pendás Non-covalent interactions in Real Space: Tracing Electron Correlation, Intermolecular Bonds, and Dispersion from the IQA Perspective

11:20 PM Prof. Péter R. Nagy Enabling gold standard level of accuracy in modeling complex noncovalent interactions between large (bio)molecules

12:00 PM Lunch

13:50 PM Prof. Sason Shaik A Gravitational-Like Behavior of Dispersion Interactions

14:30 PM Prof. Carlo Adamo Extending nonempirical DFT models to noncovalent weak interactions

14:50 PM Prof. Majdi Hochlaf On the mapping of multi-dimensional potential energy surfaces of weakly bound complexes of increasing size: state-to-the-art and challenges

15:10 PM Coffee break

15:30 PM Dr. Matteo Gori Leveraging the Many-Body Dispersion Model: Accessing Charge Density Distortions and Quantum Electrodynamics Properties in Large Molecular Systems

16:10 PM Prof. Cina Foroutan-Nejad Collective Interactions

16:30 PM Prof. Katherine Hunt Charge densities and London dispersion forces

17:10 PM Travel to Resturant & Conference dinner

9:00 AM Prof. Ganna Gryn’ova Engineering Functional Organic Materials through Noncovalent Interactions

9:40 AM Prof. Robert Pollice Noncovalent Interactions in Molecular String Representations

10:20 PM Coffe break

10:40 AM Dr. Dzmitry Firaha Neumann-Perrin dispersion correction. Twenty years of application in molecular crystal modelling

11:20 AM Dr. Johannes Hoja Anharmonic Intermolecular Vibrations of Molecular Crystals via Vibrational Perturbation Theory

11:40 PM Bastien Courbiere Chemical reactivity from a combined Conceptual DFT and ELF topology approach

12:00 PM Lunch

13:50 PM Prof. Xiaofei Liu Van der Waals Force and Torque—Macroscopic and Microscopic Descriptions

14:30 PM Dr. Prokop Hapala Grid-projected force-fields for high throughput simulations of molecules on surface

14:50 PM Dr. Ariadni Boziki The role of van der Waals interactions on the response properties of materials

15:30 PM Coffee break

15:50 PM Gianluca Regni ADLD and ADEX: New Lenses for Atomic-Level Analysis of Non-Covalent Interactions

16:10 PM Dr. Mariana Rossi Unraveling the Nuclear Motion of Weakly Bound Materials

16:50 PM Clossing words


Speakers

Share this