TABLE OF CONTENTS Over the years, the investigation of biopolymers in aqueous solution has provided valuable information on the size, shape and function of many classes of molecules, and the interest in this topic is still increasing. The fabrication of tailored pharmaceuticals is only one concrete example in a long wish list of feasible biotechnical and medicinal applications. Therefore, detailed knowledge of the biochemical and physiological processes in cells is mandatory. This, of course, also requires that the structural details and mechanisms of all species involved in the interplay are known.
The discovery and inspection of structural refinements have also stimulated the desire for comparing the results obtained by different techniques, thereby revealing molecular properties and data in solution or the solid state (in the latter case, preferably in the form of crystals). Among the techniques supplying low- and high-resolution information, methods such as small-angle scattering (SAS), light scattering, classical electron microscopy (EM) and the hydrodynamic techniques (analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) and viscometry), on the one hand, and crystallography, nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, and advanced EM techniques, on the other, are the most important, as is the desire for possibilities to critically assess the results obtained by these techniques. This demand also determines the claim for highly efficient modelling approaches. [1] , [2]
Owing to many technical improvements and an arsenal of new instrumentation, the results obtained by modern solution techniques are much more accurate and comprehensive than in former times. For example, solution scattering...
