Title: Recent progress in fluctuation theorems and free energy recovery

Abstract: Recent developments in micro and nanotechnologies enable the manipulation of single molecules one at a time. Single molecule experiments make possible to resolve energy processes with unprecedented detail at the level of 1 kT, the typical energy scale of Brownian fluctuations. Fluctuation theorems establish relations governing energy exchange processes at this level and provide new methodologies to obtain equilibrium information from non-equilibrium experiments. In this chapter we show applications to free energy recovery in single molecule experiments obtained in our laboratory (Small biosystems lab, Barcelona, Spain) in unzipping experiments carried out on DNAs, RNAs and proteins. The range of applications covers free energy recovery of molecular native, intermediate and misfolded states as well as peptide-DNA binding interactions.