The Journal is intended to cover some "frontier" aspects of materials science and, in particular, the most modern and advanced processes for the production of inorganic （semiconductors and metal alloys）, organic （protein crystals） materials and "living" （in vitro） biological tissues, with emphasis on the fluid-dynamic conditions under which they are operated. The Journal focuses on the final properties of these materials as well as on fluid-mechanical aspects pertaining to the technological processes used to grow them. Some attention is devoted as well to all those problems of “structure/fluid” interaction that have extensive background applications in important fields such as marine, aeronautical and aerospace engineering.