This Volume is based on the Lectures presented at the Meeting "Chemistry at the Beginning of the Third Millennium", wh ich was held in Pavia, Italy, during the period 7-10 October, 1999. The Meeting involved the participation of scientists from German and ltalian Universities of the 'Coimbra Group'. The 'Coimbra Group', wh ich was founded in 1987, gathers the most ancient and prestigious European Universities, with the aim to promote initiatives in both research and teaching and to provide guidelines for the progress and development of the University system. German and Italian Universities within the Coimbra Group propose every year a theme for scientific discussion, which originates a Meeting to be held in a German or Italian University. The Meeting in Pavia was the fifth of the series and followed those of Bologna (1995), Jena (1996), Siena (1997), Heidelberg (1998). Each Meeting is centred on a topic from either humanistic or natural sciences and consists in aseries of lectures presented by distinguished scientists from the six participanting Universities. For the Pavia Meeting, the Steering Committee chose Chemistry as the topic and gathered researchers with experience in almost all fields of chemistry. In particular, during the Meeting, lectures were presented on many up-to-date subjects of chemistry, including: materials science, superconductors, supramolecular chemistry, bioinorganic chemistry, fullerenes, liquid crystals, photoinduced electron transfer, etc. The different topics were covered by distinguished and renown researchers of the various fields.

Bottom-up Approach to Nanotechnology: Molecular-Level Devices

From Theory and Organometallic Model Chemistry to Catalysis: A New Class of Extremely Efficient, Single Site Homogeneous Ruthenium ROMP Catalysts
Enforced Coordination Geometries - Preorganization, Catalysis and Beyond
Supramolecular Functions of Designed Transition Metal Ion Complexes
Photoinduced Electron Transfer: Perspectives in Organic Synthesis
"Bioinspired" Metal Complexes of Macrocyclic [N42-] and Open Chain [N2O22-] Schiff Base Ligands - A Link Between Porphyrins and Salicylaldimines
Temperature and Solvent Effects on Facial Diastereoselectivity
Biological Performance of Materials
Oxide Superconductors: A Chemist's View
Molecular Switches Based on the [NiII(cyclam)]2+ Fragment
Molecular Conformations in Organic Monolayers Affect Their Ability to Resist Protein Adsorption
Electrochemical and Structural Aspects of Metallofullerenes
Polyoxometalates and Coordination Polymers
Modelling Interpretation of the Kinetics of Metabolic Processes
Computer Simulation and Molecular Design of Model Liquid Crystals
Contributors.