This NATO-ASI on BIOPOLYMERS STRUCTURE AND DYNAMICS held between 22nd June 4th July 1986 at Erice (Italy) has brought together scientists from a broad variety of biophysical disciplines - polymer physics, biophysics and physical chemistry, structure and dynamics of polynucleotides, proteins, and polysaccharides - to present the current state of knowledge in their fields, both experimental and theoretical. This Advanced Study Institute was indeed a successfull attempt to enhance the possibility of intersection of a number of research lines that currently are progressing well but are still running largely in parallel with one another: protein folding, single-polymer phase transitions, DNA condensation into liquid crystalline-like arrays, packaging in viruses, and polysaccharide gel formation. Although each phenomenon is distinctive, an awareness of similarities may lead to new ic, leas. The program has emphasized "condensed" forms of biopolymers. We are universally confronted in biology by chain polymers folded on themselves or interlinked in gel-like assemblies, whether we look at the native structure of proteins, the role of polysaccharides in connective tissue, or the genetic apparatus. A number of lectures have been devoted to condensed forms of DNA - closed circular supercoils, toruses, chromatin.