Concluding comment The organization of this special issue on “Biophysical Techniques in Photosynthesis: selleck inhibitor Basics and Applications” began with the idea of making a special effort

to further the cause of Education at a time when the Global Crisis of Energy is facing the present and future generation at an alarming rate, but our Science of Photosynthesis provides us with much hope and practical alternate solutions. We sincerely hope that this special issue of Photosynthesis Research, in two Parts (A and B), will inspire many young students to join this fascinating and rapidly developing field of research that is basic in its approach and yet offers great potential for applying the gained knowledge for the renewable production of “solar” fuels in artificial devices or in genetically modified organisms. We end this Guest Editorial with informal portraits of ourselves so that we will be recognized by others when we are at Conferences we may attend. Acknowledgments During

our editing process, each of us remembered our mentors as well as those who were, or are, associated with us, some directly related to the topic of this special issue and some not. Johannes Messinger thanks Gernot Renger, Tom Wydrzynski, Mike C. W. Evans, Jonathan H. A. Nugent, Vittal K. Enzalutamide cost Yachandra, Kenneth Sauer, and Melvin P. Klein for teaching him various biophysical techniques and for being excellent mentors. Alia thanks Hans van Gorkom, Prasanna Mohanty, and Jörg Matysik for constant support and inspiration. Govindjee has a long list: he thanks his mentors Robert Emerson and PD184352 (CI-1040) Eugene Rabinowitch, and his retired, but still very active, former doctoral students George Papageorgiou, Alan J. Stemler, and Prasanna Mohanty; he has already recognized his former student Thomas J. Wydrzynski in an earlier issue of “Photosynthesis Research” (98: 13–31, 2008). In addition,

Govindjee cherishes his past associations with Bessel Kok, C. Stacy French, Gregorio Weber, Herbert Everolimus ic50 Gutowsky, Louis N. M. Duysens, and Don C. DeVault. All three of us are thankful to all the anonymous and not-so-anonymous reviewers, David Knaff, Editor-in-Chief of Photosynthesis Research, and the following at Springer, Dordrecht (in alphabetical order): Meertinus Faber, Jacco Flipsen, Noeline Gibson, and Ellen Klink, for their excellent cooperation with us. Last but not the least, we thank the excellent Springer Corrections Team (Scientific Publishing Services (Private) Ltd (India) during the typesetting process.”
“Introduction Upon illumination of a photosynthetic reaction center (RC) the bacteriochlorophyll dimer P is excited and charge separation occurs followed by electron transfer along the active branch of electron acceptors in the direction of the secondary quinone acceptor Q B (see, e.g., Hoff and Deisenhofer (1997) for a review). Electron transfer (ET) initially occurs from the excited dimer to a bacteriopheophytin BPh with an efficiency of ~1, in ~2–4 ps.