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BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
2
SEPTEMBER
2017
BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY
Officers
President
Lukas Tamm
President-Elect
Angela Gronenborn
Past-President
Suzanne Scarlata
Secretary
Frances Separovic
Treasurer
Kalina Hristova
Council
Zev Bryant
Jane Clarke
Bertrand Garcia-Moreno
Teresa Giraldez
Ruben Gonzalez, Jr.
Ruth Heidelberger
Robert Nakamoto
Arthur Palmer
Gabriela Popescu
Marina Ramirez-Alvarado
Erin Sheets
Joanna Swain
Biophysical Journal
Jane Dyson
Editor-in-Chief
Society Office
Ro Kampman
Executive Officer
Newsletter
Executive Editor
Rosalba Kampman
Managing Editor
Beth Staehle
Contributing Writers and
Department Editors
Dorothy Chaconas
Daniel McNulty
Laura Phelan
Raelle Reid
Caitlin Simpson
Elizabeth Vuong
Ellen Weiss
Production
Ray Wolfe
Catie Curry
The
Biophysical Society Newsletter
(ISSN
0006-3495) is published eleven times
per year, January-December, by the
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President's Message
Less than one month from now, nearly 4,000 biophysicists will submit
abstracts of work they want to present at the Biophysical Society (BPS)
Annual Meeting in San Francisco next February. They, along with the
other 3,000 attendees, will come from very diverse research areas and
from all parts of the world. Many may be the only ones doing biophysics
in their labs. This coming together is what gives the Annual Meeting the
breadth of biophysics that cannot be experienced at any other meeting.
That is what makes the BPS meeting so scientifically rich and rewarding
for those who attend.
Twenty symposia will cover topics that include the molecular origins of
fiber generation that underlie neurodegenerative diseases such as Al-
zheimer’s and Parkinson’s, how channels and other membrane proteins
signal across membranes to tell cells to grow or not to grow or to conduct
current and carry information from one cell to the next, how genes are read out and genetic mate-
rial is packaged, how cells change shape and how muscle contracts, how synapses fire, how power is
generated in mitochondria, and how biological functions can be re-engineered in devices for practi-
cal applications or simply for better understanding them. This rich program of symposia is comple-
mented with four workshops on probing atomic interactions in cells, modeling biological complex-
ity, the latest developments in imaging in cells and whole animals, and the latest toolboxes to study
biomembranes. Last but not least, a major highlight of the meeting will be the National Lecture by
Jennifer Doudna
, the co-developer of the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technique, who will explain
the biophysical underpinning of this method that is currently revolutionizing biology.
For students, the BPS meeting provides an introduction to the exciting world of biophysics and the
many directions open to them, not to mention the numerous professional, networking, and educa-
tional programs that can help guide them. How many of us remember our first Biophysical Society
Annual Meeting? When we gave our first poster presentation? How many of us remember when
we were first selected to give an oral platform presentation? When we came face-to-face with our
scientific heroes, with our competitors, and with like-minded scientists from other countries? The
BPS meeting has helped us meet new collaborators, find new mentors and postdocs, develop new
research areas and grow professionally. It is where we all found our home.
In these divisive and uncertain times, biophysics as a discipline and the Biophysical Society Annual
Meeting as an event exemplify the benefits and progress that can be achieved by bringing people to-
gether. Biophysics, THE quintessential interdisciplinary field bridging the many disciplines within
the physical and life sciences, demonstrates that progress in understanding how biology works can
only be made by breaking down barriers, bringing together researchers with different perspectives,
and approaches, regardless of background, gender, ethnicity, or country of origin, to share new
ideas and discoveries.
With all of biology becoming more quantitative, there is no better time to be a biophysicist. And
no better time for biophysicists to come together, building bridges between the various disciplines
of science, including those of biological engineering, to develop new models, approaches, and tech-
niques to understand how biology works at all levels — from molecules to cells, systems, and whole
organisms.
I encourage you to bring your students, postdocs, and yourself to San Francisco this February to see
what together, biophysicists can do.
—
Lukas Tamm
, Biophysical Society President
Lukas Tamm