Theodor Förster: a giant of modern photochemistry.

The year 2011 marks the centenary of the birth of Theodor Fçrster, one of the giants of modern photochemistry. This issue is a celebration of Fçrster’s scientific achievements, and equally importantly, the science that has been enabled by his discoveries. His contributions are key to the understanding of important problems in excited-state photochemical reactions and the understanding of organic dyes. His legacy lives on in a diverse range of sciences but, undoubtedly, his most famous contribution concerns his seminal work on the electrostatically mediated energy transfer between proximate sensitiser and acceptor molecules. The process, known today as Fçrster resonance energy transfer (FRET), is key to a vast range of phenomena occurring in nature, including photosynthesis.