This special edition of Carbohydrate Polymers is based on the243rd American Chemical Society (ACS) National Meeting & Exposition, March 25–29, 2012, in San Diego, CA. The ACS spring meeting was attended by nearly 17,000 chemists and was organized around the theme “Chemistry of Life”. This theme ran throughout the entire meeting and was widely publicized, not only within the ACS but also on the streets of San Diego, generating a great deal of attention among attendees and residents alike. The Cellulose and Renewable Materials Division of the ACS (CELL) participated heavily in this thematic program in San Diego, and the content of most of the presentations in the various CELL symposia at the meeting could be described using the thematic descriptor “Biopolymers forLife”. In line with the exceptionally large interest in the San DiegoNational meeting, the CELL program was one of the largest ever, show casing over 300 oral presentations and posters on themes as diverse as cellulose-based biomedical materials, polysaccharide-based hydrocolloids, and electrospun fibers from natural materials.The editors of this special issue felt that the depth and quality of this program, and its pertinent and important theme revolving around sustainable-based polymers improving human life, should be commemorated and expanded upon. Therefore we chose suit-able and outstanding presentations from San Diego, and contacted the presenters to ask whether they would be willing to write manuscripts based on their research in the broad field in which they presented at the meeting. We were highly gratified at the number of presenters who agreed to take part in this special issue, and we thank all of them for their contributions. We subjected these submissions to the same rigorous review process that is applied to all Carbohydrate Polymers submissions. That process is now complete and we are proud and happy to present the results in this special issue. The contributions reflect the diversity that was present within the CELL division program at the San Diego ACS meeting, covering the ground from synthesis, to analysis, to physical chemistry, to important applications, and far beyond. We hope that you enjoy this special issue on Biopolymers for Life; we certainly have enjoyed interacting with the authors to put it together.

Pedro FardimLab of Fibre and Cellulose Technology, Abo Akademi,Turku, Finland

Kevin J. Edgar∗Department of Sustainable Biomaterials, VirginiaTech, Blacksburg, VA, USASheila M. Murphy Ashland Specialty Ingredients, Ashland ResearchCenter, Wilmington, DE, USA

∗Corresponding author.E-mail address: kjedgar@vt.edu (K.J. Edgar)Available online 6 August 20130144-8617/$ – see front matter© 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd.http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.carbpol.2013.07.067