Biophysical Society Newsletter
2
january
2014
Biophysical Society
Officers
President
Francisco Bezanilla
President-Elect
Dorothy Beckett
Past-President
Jane Richardson
Secretary
Lukas Tamm
Treasurer
Paul Axelsen
Council
Karen Fleming
Taekjip Ha
Amy Harkins
Samantha Harris
Peter Hinterdorfer
Juliette Lecomte
Amy Lee
Marcia Levitus
Marjorie Longo
Merritt Maduke
Daniel Minor, Jr.
Jeanne Nerbonne
Gail Robertson
Claudia Veigel
Antoine van Oijen
Bonnie Wallace
David Yue
Biophysical Journal
Leslie Loew
Editor-in-Chief
Society Office
Ro Kampman
Executive Officer
Newsletter
Alisha Yocum
Monika Zakrzewska
Production
Laura Phelan
Profile
Ellen Weiss
Public Affairs
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
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Biophysicist in Profile
Sandrasegaram Gnanakaran
“
As I have started studying
more biophysical problems,
I realize that no single
approach is enough to
solve a problem
”
–
Sandrasegaram Gnanakaran
Sandrasegaram Gnanakaran
, known to his friends and colleagues as “Gnana,”
learned independence early. When only eleven years of age, he left his family
and the rural Sri Lanka town where he grew up to attend a prestigious school
in the capital city of Colombo. With his father serving as a senior official in
the Ministry of Education, Gnana grew up understanding the value of a good
education. Science, however, was not the field he envisioned himself pursuing.
“Had I remained in my country of birth,” he says, “I would probably have
pursued a professional career like engineering or medicine.” Staying close to
home was no longer an option when Sri Lanka’s violent civil war broke out
when Gnana was in high school in Colombo. During the riots in July 1983,
one of his classmates was killed, and Gnana nearly lost his life as well. The
family home was burned, and Gnana spent several days in
hiding before ending up in a refugee camp. It was not long
until his family sent him to the US to continue his educa-
tion in a more stable environment.
After moving to the US, Gnana enrolled as an under-
graduate at Virginia Commonwealth University, and it
was during his time there that he first took an interest in
scientific research. In particular, an independent research
course under the direction of
Sarah Rutan
spurred his deci-
sion to pursue graduate studies in computer science and
chemistry. Gnana enrolled in a PhD program in physical
chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania, where he studied energy transfer
and relaxation of vibrationally excited molecules in different solvents under
the mentorship of
Robin Hochstrasser
. During his time in Hochstrasser’s lab
studying protein dynamics using IR spectroscopy, Gnana says, “I became
interested in research problems at the interface of biological and physical
sciences.” Working with Hochstrasser taught Gnana the value of tackling a
scientific problem from many different angles. Gnana has carried this multi-
pronged approach with him throughout his scientific career.
Gnana continued in Hochstrasser’s lab as a postdoc, during which time, he
says, “I was involved in the theoretical interpretation of new 2D-IR spectros-
copy that was started around that time in his group. I used molecular dynam-
ics simulations to deduce conformations of peptides in conjunction with 2D-
IR.” This work strengthened Gnana’s interest in biophysics, and specifically
sparked his curiosity about protein folding. He wanted to learn more about
computational approaches to study protein folding, so he was excited to hear
that
Angel Garcia
was looking for a postdoc. Gnana approached Garcia at the
Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, and soon began work in Garcia’s group
at the Los Alamos National Labs (LANL).
Coming from an experimental lab, Gnana had much to learn about the
theoretical approaches to studying protein dynamics, folding, and misfolding.
Thankfully, Garcia was an excellent mentor. “He had a vision of how com-
