BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER
2
OCTOBER
2014
BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY
Officers
President
Dorothy Beckett
President-Elect
Edward Egelman
Past-President
Francisco Bezanilla
Secretary
Lukas Tamm
Treasurer
Paul Axelsen
Council
Olga Boudker
Taekjip Ha
Samantha Harris
Kalina Hristova
Juliette Lecomte
Amy Lee
Marcia Levitus
Merritt Maduke
Daniel Minor, Jr.
Jeanne Nerbonne
Antoine van Oijen
Joseph D. Puglisi
Michael Pusch
Bonnie Wallace
David Yue
Biophysical Journal
Leslie Loew
Editor-in-Chief
Society Office
Ro Kampman
Executive Officer
Newsletter
Ray Wolfe
Alisha Yocum
Production
Laura Phelan
Profile
Ellen Weiss
Public Affairs
The
Biophysical Society Newsletter
(ISSN 0006-3495) is published
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Biophysicists in Profile
Malin Suurkuusk
, Product Manager and Application Scientist at TA Instru-
ments, grew up in Virginia with a calorimeter lab in her house, so it is no
surprise that she became a scientist. Her father,
Jaak Suurkuusk,
was a ther-
mochemist who designed calorimeters that would be able to measure heat
capacities of biological systems. He started out by designing calorimeters
during his postdoc, in order to be able to determine some of the thermody-
namic parameters needed for their study. Following his postdoc, he became
more focused on calorimeter design and less involved in experimentation,
eventually opening his own business.
Over time, the business became a family affair; Suurkuusk began assist-
ing her father in his lab at age thirteen, and her mother, sister, and brother
became involved in administration, marketing, and programming. When
she started high school, she was already familiar with a scientific setting and
many of the tools therein. She had also developed a great interest in science,
inspired by her father’s work. She says of her father, “He is a visionary when
it comes to calorimetry and thermodynamics.” Following in his footsteps,
she chose to study math, chemistry, and physics in high school.
When Suurkuusk began her un-
dergraduate degree at Stockholm
University, she was unsure about
which STEM subject she would
pursue. “I could not choose be-
tween math and natural science
with a major in chemistry,” she says,
“I applied to both, but the natural
science courses started a day before
the math courses.” Suurkuusk took
the timing as a sign, and decided
to focus on biochemistry. She took
classes in physical chemistry and
neurochemistry during this time
as well, and graduated with her
master’s degree in biochemistry. She
says, “When I was looking for a graduate position, I wanted to learn more
about physical methods for the study of biological and biochemical systems,
even if I did not call it biophysics at the time.”
Suurkuusk earned her PhD conducting research in the thermochemistry
department at Lund University and in an industrial setting at Pharmacia.
Working in industry at this point in her career brought a particularly dif-
ficult set of challenges. In her first two years, she worked on several projects
that were subsequently closed by the company. She came away with noth-
ing to publish. After the first few years, she began working on a project
MALIN SUURKUUSK
“
I am really impressed by earlier
scientists when so much was still
unknown and they did not have the
tools we have today. Also being a
woman in research those days, when
all of society was very male-dominat-
ed. I admire those who did this pio-
neering work.
”
–
Malin Suurkuusk
