Biophysical Society Newsletter
4
february
2014
Biophysical Journal Corner
BJ
Poster Awards
In addition to the recently announced Paper
of the Year Award,
BJ
is pleased to sponsor a
new program of BPS Thematic Meeting Poster
Awards. At each Society thematic meeting,
a selection committee will identify four out-
standing posters, two by students and two by
postdocs. An award of $250 will be made to the
presenting author for each of the four posters.
Highlighted Papers
Each month a few papers are highlighted in
BJ
with a New & Notable article. These are com-
mentaries in which the author can highlight a
point, question, or controversy raised in the paper
it discusses. Visit
to read these
articles from a recent issue of
BJ
.
Energetic View on Membrane Pore Formation
,
Martina Pannuzzo
and
Rainer A. Böckmann
,
which highlights the paper:
Atomistic Simulations
of Pore Formation and Closure in Lipid Bilayers
,
W.F.
Drew Bennett
,
Nicolas Sapay
,
D. Peter Tieleman
.
Temperature Cycles Unravel the Dynamics of Single
Biomolecules
,
Haifeng Yuan
and
Michel Orrit
, which
highlights the paper:
Pulsed Infrared-Heating Studies
of Single Molecule DNA Duplex Dissociation Kinetics
and Thermodynamics
,
Erik D. Holmstrom
,
Nicholas F.
Dupuis
, and
David J. Nesbitt
.
Big Cells Cleave as Fast as Small Ones: The Physics of
Cytokinesis
,
Sriram Ramaswamy
, which highlights
the paper:
Furrow Constriction in Animal Cell
Cytokinesis
,
Herve Turlier
,
Basile Audoly
,
Jacques
Prost
, and
Jean-Francois Joanny
.
Also see this Review, which was published in a
recent issue of
BJ
:
Vertex Models of Epithelial Morphogenesis by
Alexander G. Fletcher
,
Miriam Osterfield
,
Ruth E.
Baker
, and
Stanislav Y. Shvartsman
.
Know the Editors
Antoine M. van Oijen
University of Groningen
Editor for Molecular Machines,
Motors, and Nanoscale
Biophysics Section
Q:
What is your area of research?
My research revolves around the development
and use of single-molecule biophysical tools to
study complex biochemical systems. In particular,
my group is using single-molecule approaches
to understand how processes work such as DNA
replication, viral fusion, and membrane transport.
Following the motto “Seeing is believing,” we try
to visualize, in real time, how molecular machiner-
ies do their work. A good example is our work on
DNA replication, where we use mechanical tools to
stretch a piece of DNA and monitor length changes
as a readout for the progression of the replication
machinery. We then simultaneously observe the flu-
orescence of individual replication proteins on the
DNA to visualize dynamic changes in the composi-
tion of the multi-protein replication complex. This
single-molecule approach has helped us tremen-
dously in answering some complicated questions
related to the coordination of the DNA unwinding,
priming, and synthesis activities that take place at
the replication fork.
Trained as a physicist but having worked in a biol-
ogy environment for a large part of my career, I love
combining the development of new tools with solving
mechanistic puzzles at the molecular scale. In the same
way, I enjoy being surrounded by colleagues from
different disciplines. Being an editorial board member
for
Biophysical Journal
brings me a similar satisfaction:
I get to read the newest results from highly interdis-
ciplinary research, and I have the opportunity to help
the Journal publish the very best of it.
Antoine M. van Oijen
BPS Blog:
Learn About
BJ
Images
Visit the Society
Blog page at
http://
biophysicalsociety.
wordpress.com/
to
learn more about
the images featured
on the covers of BJ.
Each post describes
how the cover im-
age artistically rep-
resents the author’s
research interest.
