Biophysical Society Newsletter - February 2016

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2016

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

FEBRUARY

Biophysicist in Profile SUZANNE SCARLATA

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY

Officers President Edward Egelman President-Elect Suzanne Scarlata Past-President Dorothy Beckett Secretary Frances Separovic Treasurer Paul Axelsen Council Olga Boudker Ruth Heidelberger Kalina Hristova Juliette Lecomte Amy Lee Robert Nakamoto Gabriela Popescu Joseph D. Puglisi Michael Pusch Erin Sheets Antoine van Oijen Bonnie Wallace Biophysical Journal Leslie Loew Editor-in-Chief

Suzanne Scarlata , Whitcomb Chair of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Worces- ter Polytechnic Institute (WPI), whose term as Biophysical Society President will begin in March 2016, grew up in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, a fact which is evident by her lingering accent. Her mother was a very success- ful hairdresser and her father worked as a quality control specialist for the helicopter division of Boeing. No one in Scarlata’s large family worked—or was particularly interested—in science and as a young person, Scarlata herself was not very interested in it either. In fact, she did not give much thought to what career she would pursue at all. “In high school, I was put in the secre- tarial track where they placed students who weren’t interested in going to college,” she says. “After taking classes in typing (which has served me well) and shorthand (which has not), I switched to the college preparatory track.” Scarlata did indeed go to college. She attended Temple University and began studying science. “I started taking science classes in college because there seemed to be more science-related jobs than in the fields that I enjoyed more, like sociology, art, and history,” Scarlata explains. Once she started down the path toward a science career, however, she unlocked an interest within herself. “In my junior year, I started an undergraduate project that focused on histone structure,” she says. “It was then that I realized I wanted a career in scientific research.” She earned her Bachelor of Arts in chemistry and then continued on to graduate school at the University of Illinois in Urbana- Champaign (UIUC). “My thesis work used different fluorescence methods to study protein dynamics and to quantify protein associations,” Scarlata says. “After characterizing the movement and interactions of proteins in model systems, I wondered how these data relate to proteins in their native cellular environment.” Scarlata met Catherine Royer in the fall of 1980 at UIUC. They became friends quickly and worked together during their thesis studies, co-authoring a paper on protein interaction and dynamics. In the late 1980s, Scarlata and Royer worked together again on histone interactions. “I remember the papers well, because we measured fluorescence lifetimes via frequency domain prior to the automation of the instrument,” Royer recalls. “We calculated that we turned the knob between sample and reference 6,000 times for the data in the paper. We called it the Bengay paper! Younger biophysicists will not appreciate the amount of elbow grease we put into our work back then!” Scarlata notes that Royer, now at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, got sun- burned from aligning light from the Xenon arc lamp, since those were the days before lasers were easily available. After earning her PhD, Scarlata took a permanent position at AT&T Bell Labs, in their materials and optics division, developing optical testing meth- ods for printed circuit boards. She wanted to pursue biophysical research further, so she left AT&T, taking a position at Cornell University Medical College in Manhattan. Early in her career, she faced a crisis of confidence

Cartoon by friend & freelance cartoonist Barbara Kelley www.barbarakelley.com

Society Office Ro Kampman Executive Officer Newsletter Catie Curry Beth Staehle Ray Wolfe Production Laura Phelan Profile Ellen Weiss Public Affairs Beth Staehle Publisher's Forum

The Biophysical Society Newsletter (ISSN 0006-3495) is published twelve times per year, January- December, by the Biophysical Society, 11400 Rockville Pike, Suite 800, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Distributed to USA members and other countries at no cost. Canadian GST No. 898477062. Postmaster: Send address changes to Biophysical Society, 11400 Rockville Pike, Suite 800, Rockville, MD 20852. Copyright © 2016 by the Biophysical Society. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.