By selecting the ?rst week of June 2008 for the Nobel Symposium ¿Single Molecular Spectroscopy in Chemistry, Physics and Biology¿, Rudolf Rigler, Jerker Widengren and Astrid Grasl ¿ und have once again won the top prize for Meeting Organizers, providing us with a Mediterranean climate on top of the warm hospitality that is unique to Sweden. The S? anga Sab ¿ y Conference Center was an ideal place to spend this wonderful week, and the comfort of this beautiful place blended perfectly with the high calibre of the scienti?c programme. It was a special privilege for me to be able to actively participate in this meeting on a ?eld that is in many important ways complementary to myownresearch. Iwasimpressedbytheinterdisciplinarywaysinwhichsingle molecule spectroscopy has evolved and is currently pursued, with ingredients originating from physics, all branches of chemistry and a wide range of b- logical and biomedical research. A beautiful concert by Semmy Stahlhammer and Johan Ull¿ en further extended the interdisciplinary character of the s- posium. I would like to combine thanks to Rudolf, Jerker and Astrid with a glance into a future of other opportunities to enjoy top-levelscience combined with warm hospitality in the Swedish tradition. Z¿ urich, Kurt Wuth ¿ rich April 2009 Participants of the Nobel-Symposium 138: First row: Sarah Unterko?er, Anders Liljas, Xiao-Dong Su, Birgitta Rigler, Carlos Bus- mante, Toshio Yanagida, Steven Block, Xiaowei Zhuang, Sunney Xie. Second row: Ivan Scheblykin, Lars Thelander, Petra Schwille, Watt W.

Introductory Lecture: Molecular Dynamics of Single Molecules.- How Biomolecular Motors Work: Synergy Between Single Molecule Experiments and Single Molecule Simulations.- Detection of Single Molecules and Single Molecule Processes.- Single-Molecule Optical Spectroscopy and Imaging: From Early Steps to Recent Advances.- Single Molecules as Optical Probes for Structure and Dynamics.- FCS and Single Molecule Spectroscopy.- Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy.- Single Molecule Spectroscopy Illuminating the Molecular Dynamics of Life.- Chemical Fluxes in Cellular Steady States Measured by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy.- In Vivo Fluorescence Correlation and Cross-Correlation Spectroscopy.- Fluorescence Flicker as a Read-out in FCS: Principles, Applications and Further Developments.- Quantum Dots and Single Molecule Behaviour.- Development of Nanocrystal Molecules for Plasmon Rulers and Single Molecule Biological Imaging.- Size-Minimized Quantum Dots for Molecular and Cellular Imaging.- Mapping Transcription Factors on Extended DNA: A Single Molecule Approach.- Molecular Motion of Contractile Elements and Polymer Formation.- Single Molecule Measurement, a Tool for Exploring the Dynamic Mechanism of Biomolecules.- Viral DNA Packaging: One Step at a Time.- Chemo-Mechanical Coupling in the Rotary Molecular Motor F-ATPase.- Force and Multiparameter Spectroscopy on Functional Active Proteins.- Mechanoenzymatics and Nanoassembly of Single Molecules.- Single Cell Physiology.- Force-Clamp Spectroscopy of Single Proteins.- Unraveling the Secrets of Bacterial Adhesion Organelles Using Single-Molecule Force Spectroscopy.- Nanoscale Microscopy and High Resolution Imaging.- Far-Field Optical Nanoscopy.- Sub-Diffraction-Limit Imaging with Stochastic Optical Reconstruction Microscopy.- Assessing Biological Samples with Scanning Probes.- Single Molecule Microscopy in Individual Cells.- Enzymology and Life at the Single Molecule Level.- Controlling Chemistry in Dynamic Nanoscale Systems.- Catalysis of Single Enzyme Molecules.- Single-Molecule Protein Conformational Dynamics in Enzymatic Reactions.- Watching Individual Enzymes at Work.- The Influence of Symmetry on the Electronic Structure of the Photosynthetic Pigment-Protein Complexes from Purple Bacteria.- New Fields and Outlook.- Exploring Nanostructured Systems with Single-Molecule Probes: From Nanoporous Materials to Living Cells.- Gene Regulation: Single-Molecule Chemical Physics in a Natural Context.