Biophysical Society Bulletin | November 2019

Biophysicist in Profile

SethWeinberg Areas of Research Computational modeling of molecular, cellular, and multi-cellular systems

Institution The Ohio State University

At-a-Glance

Seth Weinberg recently moved his computational modeling lab from Virginia Commonwealth University to the Biomedical Engineering Department of the Ohio State University. “My favorite thing about biophysics is the elegance in so many of the techniques and approaches used in the field and how the field is so highly interdisciplinary in nature. My training is in biomedical engi- neering and biomathematics, and I enjoy that my interactions within the biophysics field include talking with physicists, chemists, biologists, computer scientists, engineers, and more,” he shares. “Because so many scientists enter the field from different backgrounds, I have learned so many different ideas and approaches in the study of biophysics and through attending Biophysical Society meetings.”

Seth Weinberg

Growing up in Tampa, Florida, Seth Weinberg , associate professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Ohio State University, knew he wanted to be a professor. “From a very early age, I knew that I enjoyed both teaching and exploring science, and college professor was a natural fit for these interests,” he explains. He attended Duke University for his undergraduate studies, where he was first exposed to scientific research. He worked in an ultrasound research lab, where he built and tested new designs for high-frequency transducers. He was also ventur- ing into biophysics for the first time, through his coursework in modeling of excitable cell electrophysiology. “I took a course called ‘Bioelectricity’ taught by Roger Barr, in which I learned the basics of using mathematical modeling to describe cur- rents through ion channels and cellular excitability,” he says. “This course was the first time that I really appreciated how powerful and elegant biophysical modeling could be, although it would be several years until modeling became my primary research focus.” After receiving his bachelor’s degree in 2006, with a major in biomedical engineering and a minor in mathematics, he attended Johns Hopkins University for his PhD. He joined Leslie Tung’s lab, where he worked on defibrillation of the heart, strengthening his interest in cardiac electrophysiology. Weinberg then joined the Biomathematics Initiative at the College of William and Mary as a postdoctoral fellow. He worked under the advisement of Gregory D. Conradi Smith on developing stochastic models of subcellular calcium signaling in cardiac myocytes. Following his postdoctoral studies, he worked as a research assistant professor at the Virginia Modeling, Analysis, and Simulation Center at Old Dominion University for two years.

The transition from postdoc to independent scientist was a challenging one for Weinberg, as it is for many people. “It is in general a very overwhelming time, brainstorming ideas for new projects, writing grants, and finding my way through a new department and university. It was personally challeng- ing, because my twin daughters had just been born, so I had the additional challenge of being a first-time father,” he says. “Sleep was rare at this time in my life. I did not have one spe- cific approach to facing this challenge, but just tried to take each day and task one at a time. I did my best to organize and prioritize the different tasks. I was fortunate to have great colleagues and mentors for advice on how to manage this challenging time.” In 2016, he accepted a position as an assistant professor in biomedical engineering at Virginia Commonwealth Universi- ty, where he remained until this fall. Weinberg has recently started a new position as an associate professor in biomedical engineering at the Ohio State University, and is also affiliated with the Davis Heart and Lung Research Institute at the Wex- ner Medical Center at Ohio State. His lab has two main research areas of focus — computa- tional cardiac electrophysiology and computational mechano- biology. “My interest in cardiac electrophysiology began with my early coursework under Roger Barr and continued with my PhD work on defibrillation of the heart with Leslie Tung . My interest in mechanobiology began with an early collaboration with my colleague Christopher Lemmon at Virginia Common- wealth University,” he explains. “Chris is an experimental bioengineer who studies — among other topics — cellular regulation of the extracellular matrix. Towards the end of my postdoc, Chris and I discussed an idea for modeling the as- sembly of the extracellular matrix protein fibronectin and how cells mechanically regulate this process.”

November 2019

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