Of central importance in personal care, food, pharmaceutics, and biotechnology, biomaterials and biosubstrates formed the subject of the fifth meeting of the Royal Society-Unilever INDO-UK Forum in Materials Science and Engineering. The programme for this meeting dwelt on two principal foci: (i) new advances in the measurement of the supramolecular and colloidal structures, and (ii) the relationship of these structures to the functional properties of the materials.This volume is a compilation of selected papers presented at the meeting by world-renowned scientists who included, among others, Prof E D T Atkins (Bristol, UK), Prof N Chandrakumar (Chennai, India), Dr A M Hermansson (Goteborg, Sweden), Dr V J Morris (Norwich, UK), Prof P Walstra (Wageningen, The Netherlands), Dr V Prakash (Mysore, India), Prof S B Ross-Murphy (King's College, London, UK), Prof G E Rogers (Adelaide, Australia), Dr T Kealey (Cambridge, UK) and Prof N Appaji Rao (Bangalore, India).Contents:Chain-Folded apβ-Sheet Lamellar Structures from Genetically-Engineered Periodic Polypeptides (E D T Atkins)C-13 NMR Imaging: Techniques and Applications to Materials and Biological Systems (N Chandrakumar)Supermolecular and Colloidal Food Structures: Novel Microscopic Approaches (A M Hermansson)Molecular Microscopy (V J Morris & A P Gunning)Supramolecular Structure of Proteins: Can Equilibrium be Shifted in Multimeric Proteins to Supernative Structure with Higher Stability in Certain Cosolvents? (V Prakash et al.)Fractal Particle Gels in Foods (P Walstra)The Rheology of Macromolecular and Supramolecular Biomaterials (S B Ross-Murphy)Cells and Molecules in the Properties of Hair and Wool (G E Rogers)The Cell Biology of Skin and Hair (T Kealey)Tetrameric Serine HydroxymethyItransferase: Insights into Molecular Organisation, Function and Rational Drug Design (N A Rao et al.)and other papersReadership: Materials scientists, chemists and biologists.