Biophysical Newsletter - April 2014

Newsletter APRIL 2014

DEADLINES

Society's Nominating Committee Members Elected

Networking Events April 15 Proposal Deadline

During its meeting in San Francisco, Council elected four Society members to the 2014 Nominating Committee. Serv- ing a term of one year, this Committee is charged with preparing the slate of candi- dates for the 2015 Society elections. The four members elected to the Nominat- ing Committee were Lila Gierasch of the University of Massachusetts; Ed Lattman of Hauptman Woodward Medical Research Institute; Marcia Levitus of Arizona State University; and Jody Puglisi of Stanford University. In addition to the four newly elected mem- bers, Past-President Francisco Bezanilla , of the University of Chicago, and Past-Chair Gail Robertson , of the University of Wiscon- sin, Madison, will serve on the Committee, which will be chaired by Marcia Levitus .

Thematic Meetings Modeling of Biomolecular Systems Interactions, Dynamics, and Allostery September 10–14, 2014 Istanbul, Turkey May 5 Abstract Submission June 16 Early Registration Significance of Knotted Structures for Function of Proteins and Nucleic Acids September 17–21, 2014 Warsaw, Poland May 12 Abstract Submission June 23 Early Registration Disordered Motifs and Domains in Cell Control October 11–15, 2014 Dublin, Ireland June 2 Abstract Submission July 11 Early Registration

Francisco Bezanilla

Marcia Levitus, Chair

Lila Gierasch

Ed Lattman

Joseph Puglisi

Gail Robertson

Society Awards Nomination Deadline: May 1 There are just a few weeks left to nominate your colleagues for one of eight Biophysical Society Awards. The Awards are aimed at recognizing members who have shown excellence in biophysics. All Awards will be presented at the

2015 Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, February 7–11. For more information about the Biophysical Society Awards, visit www.biophysics.org and click on Awards/Opportunities.

CONTENTS

2 4 5 5 6

8

Biophysicist in Profile

Public Affairs

10 11 12

Treasurer's Report

Subgroups

Biophysical Society

Members in the News Grants and Opps Biophysical Journal

Annual Meeting Survey Winners

Upcoming Events

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BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY

Biophysicist in Profile NATALI MINASSIAN

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

Natali Minassian did not grow up with scientist parents, but they did teach her some skills early on that continue to serve her today in her life as a scientist. Her father received his PhD in electrical engineering from the University of Texas, Austin. He hoped that at least one of his children would follow in his footsteps, so he encouraged Minassian and her sisters to take physics classes and taught them how to code programs. This was her first introduction to physics, and it clearly made an impression. Minassian’s mother had her Masters’ degree in architecture and worked in the planning commission for the City of Austin before becoming a stay-at-home mom. Minassian would watch her

“ Before you become saddled in dogma and what you can’t do, just try to do what no one may have ever done before. Assume the rules are just suggestions.

mother make blueprints, and would use her mother’s drafting desk, writing utensils, and geometric instru- ments to make her own designs for school projects. “This is a habit I’ve continued as a scientist. I still make detailed blueprints of my experiments when trying to design something new,” she says. In high school, Minassian began to excel in cal- culus, physics, and chemistry classes, and realized that she thoroughly enjoyed studying these topics. This convinced her to pursue biology at Santa Clara University. After receiving her BS degree, she began working at Xenoport, Inc., a biopharmaceutical

”

– Natali Minassian

Society Office Ro Kampman Executive Officer

company “focused on utilizing ion channels and transporters as means to optimize drug uptake through the GI tract or blood brain barrier,” Minassian explains. This was her first experience working with mem- brane proteins, which drew her into the field of biophysics. She became interested in voltage-gated ion channels, and knew that to work in this area, she needed to fine tune her techniques and learn how to determine which questions to ask as a research scientist. In order to gain this skill set and experience, Minassian decided to apply to graduate school. She attended the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and worked under the supervision of Diane Papazian . As a graduate student in Papazian’s laboratory, she learned the tools necessary to become an electrophysiology researcher and also gained experience with the bio- physical techniques needed to answer the questions she would pose in her hypotheses going forward. She received her PhD in Biophysics from the Molecular, Cellular, and Integrative Physiology program at UCLA. Minassian wanted to transition back into industry after receiving her PhD, but the reality of this move proved more difficult than she had anticipated. Even though she had worked in industry prior to receiv- ing her PhD, transitioning back was “the biggest career challenge I have faced so far,” Minassian says. To make matters worse, her job search was taking place in the midst of the US’ recession in 2010. Though she was

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 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 © 2014 by the Biophysical Society. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

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having difficulty finding a postdoctoral fellow- ship in industry, she was able to secure a postdoc position at UCLA under the supervision of Igor Spigelman . She stayed in this position for only three months, but while there, she did some pre- liminary research “on the effects of alcohol and radiation on GABA activity via electrophysiolog- ical slice recordings,” she explains. The knowl- edge she acquired and the expertise of the people she worked with in Spigelman’s lab made her, as she says, “a more well-rounded scientist, with an expanded skillset and stronger foundation.” Following this position, Minassian started an industrial postdoc fellowship at Janssen Phar- maceutical Companies of Johnson & Johnson, as part of the ion channel group in the neurosci- ence team. At Janssen, she worked under Alan Wickenden on drug discovery for central nervous system disorders, ranging from disorders of mood and cognition to pain. “My mechanistic focus was on ion channels as targets for treat- ments of the nervous system, utilizing electro- physiology, cell-based assays, radioactive binding assays and cell culture as tools for investigation,” Minassian says. She also collaborated with onsite teams from other therapeutic areas, including Centocor Biologics Research and Computer- Aided Development and Design (CADD), as well as external partners. After finishing up her postdoc at Janssen, Minassian recently started as a senior scientist at Pfizer, in the Integrative and Circuit Neurosci- ence group in the Neuroscience Research Unit. At Pfizer, she will be evaluating how compounds affect single cell and networking activity. In this position, as in any research position, she will face difficulties when experiments do not go as planned, but she knows that these challenges serve as a great source of inspiration. “There are times I will try to patch cells all day and not get a successful electrophysiological recording until the end of the day. It can get frustrating,” she says, “ However, the fantastic reward comes when the experiment works, when you get that beautiful recording from a neuron or a trans- fected cell, when you see an effect from a treat- ment added to a cell or get a beautiful image on a confocal microscope. That is the reward that

keeps me motivated to keep trying and trouble- shooting and working…..this fascinating result. That result opens the path for multiple pathways of exploration and you keep finding new ways to investigate a scientific question.” Yi Liu , Minassian’s mentor at Janssen, admires the dedication Minassian has demonstrated in- working through frustration in order to progress in her research. He recalls a time when Minas- sian was developing a particular experimental method for a project, and “despite numerous at- tempts she had made under various conditions, no significant progress seemed in sight. Several times, it was suggested, quite reasonably, that she move on to other assay formats.” Minassian was convinced that this method was of critical importance to the project, and that her approach was sound, so she refused to change tactics. Liu remembers, “She continued to experiment, ‘stubbornly’ expanding into conditions previ- ously dismissed as being unlikely to work. Sure enough, that is where she eventually found the answer.” When she is not working hard in the lab, Minas- sian tries to take advantage of her new home in the Boston area by trying out local restaurants. According to her former colleague Amy Shih , Minassian had a great depth of knowledge in this area when living in San Diego, “Natali al- ways knew of the best places to eat. At one point [during our postdoc at Janssen] she emailed out a listing of some top restaurant choices, and I still occasionally refer to that list for dining op- tions.” Minassian also enjoys seeing live music, and indulging her creative side by making jew- elry and painting. Minassian wants to remind those just starting out in their careers to engage with their own creativity in the lab. She says, “Pursue your crazy ideas. Before you become saddled in dogma and what you can’t do, just try to do what no one may have ever done before. Assume the rules are just suggestions.”

Minassian with her parents at her graduation ceremony.

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Treasurer’s Report

At the end of each fiscal year, which runs from July 1-June 30, the Society’s finances undergo an audit. The fiscal year ending 2013 (FYE13) audit was conducted in August 2013 and presented to Council at its October 2013 meeting. This audit showed that Society operations resulted in net revenue of $459,280, not including interest and dividends from reserves. This revenue reflects the continued growth of the Society as well as efficient control of overall costs. The full audit is available online at http://www.biophysics.org/AboutUs/ Committees/Finance/tabid/472/Default.aspx. Society Reserves As has been done in past years, a majority of the net revenues from FY13 are being moved to the professionally managed reserves. The purpose of these reserves is to ensure that the Society has sufficient funds to operate in spite of catastrophic events such as a precipitous decline in meeting attendance due to a blizzard. The Society’s net assets (chiefly in reserves) grew from $9,651,927 at the end of FYE12 to $11,177,742 at the end of FYE13, due to the transfer of net revenues into reserves, and gains in the stock market. As prescribed by Council, the average reserve balance over the last three years is now sufficient to cover the operational expenses projected for FY14. Working for Its Members Members increasingly turn to their professional societies for support and services during diffi- cult economic times. The Society is continually updating its website (www.biophysics.org) to help members learn about Society programs and take full advantage of Society membership. We have been working with Cell Press to maintain the ex-

cellence of Biophysical Journal and increase its im- pact. To that end, members are offered reduced page charges and online color figures without charge. Students, postdoctoral fellows, and un- derrepresented minority scientists were given 162 travel, poster, society and science fair awards in FY13. The Society recently sponsored four very successful thematic meetings in China, India, Ko- rea, and Maine, with four more meetings planned in the near future. Ten grants were awarded to Society members throughout the world for local networking events. The Public Affairs committee promotes diverse activities to help educate those in the government and various agencies about the importance of research funding for biophysics. The Society will be choosing and sponsoring a AAAS fellow to work with a member of Congress and make sure that the science is understood and represented in the legislative process. Outlook The Biophysical Society has continued to flourish even in financially challenging times. The San Francisco Annual Meeting attracted the highest number of abstracts ever (4,514) and nearly 7,000 attendees. Membership continues to be strong with 8,531 members in 2013. The Society has seen an increase in the percentage of membership from outside the US, which now stands at nearly 35%. We attribute this success to our focus on the core mission of encouraging the development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. The Finance Committee and Council will contin- ue to monitor the Society’s fiscal health diligently to ensure continued success.

Paul Axelsen Treasurer

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Members in the News

Grants and Opportunities

AAAS Fellows

Judith Frydman , Stanford University and Society Member since 2012, received the 2014 Dorothy Crowfoot Hodgkin Award from the Protein Society. Lukas Tamm , University of Virginia and Society member since 1990, is the most recent recipient of the Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Stephen White , University of California, Irvine and So- ciety member since 1980, has been awarded the 2014 Carl Brändén Award from the Protein Society.

Objective: To seek a member whose efforts on behalf of the advancement of science or its applications are scientifically or socially distinguished. Who can apply: A continuous member of AAAS since December 31, 2010 or earlier. All nominations must be sponsored by previ- ously elected AAAS Fellows who are current in their membership. Deadline: April 16, 2014 Website: http://www.aaas.org/page/aaas- fellows Objective: To provide a unique opportunity for the most promising newly qualified post- doctoral researchers to make an early start in developing their independent research careers, working in the best laboratories in the UK and overseas. Who can apply: Applicants must be in the final year of their PhD studies or have no more than one year of postdoctoral research experience from the date of their PhD viva to the full application submission deadline. Deadline: May 8, 2014 Website: http://www.wellcome.ac.uk/Fund- ing/Biomedical-science/Funding-schemes/ Fellowships/Basic-biomedical-fellowships/ WTX033549.htm Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellowships

Suggest a Student or Postdoc to Spotlight

Do you have a spotlight-worthy student or postdoc in your lab? Let us know. Send his/her name to society@biophysics.org so that they can be featured in the newsletter.

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Biophysical Journal Corner

Know the Editors Joshua Wand University of Pennsylvania Editor of Proteins and Nucleic Acids Section Q: What is your area of research? I am broadly interested in how the biophysi- cal properties of proteins are manifested in their biological function. We are particularly engaged in trying to reveal the nature of internal protein motion and how this influences functions rang- ing from molecular recognition to allostery and catalysis. Since the determination of the first pro- tein structures over half a century ago, the view of protein thermodynamics and function has been largely driven by the exquisite detail of the struc- tural models provided by crystallography. This is a very enthalpic perspective. For the past two decades we have been working toward using mea- sures of fast internal motion measured by NMR relaxation techniques as a quantitative proxy for conformational entropy. This has resulted in the construction of an “entropy meter” that has al- lowed us to show that changes in conformational entropy resulting from a change in functional state can be very large. A second emphasis of research rests on the ad- vantageous properties of proteins encapsulated in reverse micelles. Our original idea was to use solu- tions of encapsulated proteins prepared in very low viscosity solvents as a way to overcome the slow tumbling problem presented by large pro- teins to solution NMR. It turns out that a variety of features of the reverse micelle, derived mainly from the confined space of the water core, open other applications. These include structural stud- ies of unstable proteins through forced folding, characterization of protein hydration dynamics, structural characterization of integral and mem- brane anchored proteins among many other applications.

New & Notables Each month a few papers are highlighted in BJ with a New & Notable, which are commentaries that highlight a point, question, or controversy raised in the paper they discuss. Visit www.bio- physj.org to read these articles from a recent issue of BJ . Taking Care of Bystander FRET in a Crowded Cell Membrane Environment , Amitabha Chattopad- hyay and Andrew Clayton, which highlights the paper: The FRET Signatures of Non-Interacting Pro- teins in Membranes: Simulations and Experiments , Kalina Hristova, Christopher King , Sarvenaz Sarabipour , Patrick Byrne, and Daniel Leahy Amyloid Fibrils: the Eighth Wonder of the World in Protein Folding and Aggregation , Igor Lednev, which highlights the paper: Mutational Analysis of Pre-Amyloid Intermediates: The Role of His-Tyr Interactions in Islet Amyloid Formation , Daniel Raleigh, Ling-Hsien Tu , Arnaldo Serrano , and Martin Zanni Does Cell Mechanics in Adipogenesis Offer New Keys for the Prevention and Management of Obe- sity? Thomas Franz, highlighting the paper: Does Cell Mechanics in Adipogenesis Offer New Keys for the Prevention and Management of Obesity? Amit Gefen, Naama Shoham , Pinhas Girshovitz , Rona Katzengold, Natan Shaked , and Dafna Benayahu First Demonstration of Bistability in CaMKII, a Memory Related Kinase , Paul Michalski, which highlights the paper: In Vitro Reconstitution of a CaMKII Memory Switch by an NMDA Receptor-Derived Peptide , Hidetoshi Urakubo, Miharu Sato, Shin Ishii, and Shinya Kuroda

Josh Wand

Biophysical Journal Call for Papers

Special Issue: Focus on Quantitative Cell Biology

For publication December 2, 2014, Volume 107, Number 11

Biophysical Journal will publish a special issue of the Journal with a focus on Quantitative Cell Biology. The Journal welcomes submissions that report on studies of biological molecules and structures with a focus on mechanisms at the cellular level using the

concepts and methods of physics, chemistry, mathematics, engineering, and computational science. Studies should further our understanding of the interactions between the various systems of a cell as well as how these

interactions are regulated. The journal aims to publish the highest quality work and articles should have sufficient importance to be of general interest to biophysicists, regardless of their research specialty.

Deadline for submission: July 1, 2014

• Please include a cover letter stating that you would like to be part of the special issue on Quantitative Cell Biology • Select “Special Issue: Focus on Quantitative Cell Biology” when uploading your submission. • Instructions for authors can be found at: http://download.cell.com/

images/edimages/Biophys/Instructions_to_Authors.pdf • Questions can be directed to the BJ Editorial Office at BJ@biophysics.org or (240) 290-5545.

Journal publication fees will apply

PUBLISHED BY

Biophysical Society

For more information, go to www.biophysj.org

BJ_CallForPapers_SpecialIssue.indd 1

1/22/2014 11:41:23 AM

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Public Affairs

outcomes research to combat public-health chal- lenges such as antibiotic resistance and neurode- generative diseases. His proposed budget includes a doubling in funding for the BRAIN Initiative to approximately $200 million for 2015 across NIH, NSF, and DARPA. Holdren summarized the President’s baseline 2015 R&D proposal with the following words: “These average increases are plainly modest,” adding that “this budget required a lot of tough choices. All of us would have preferred more.” The President also proposed to asking Congress to lift spending caps to provide another $56 billion for an “Opportunities, Growth, and Security Ini- tiative” to promote innovation and job creation, including basic and applied research, high-tech manufacturing hubs, incentives for states support- ing energy efficiency, and other science-based pri- orities that he described in his State of the Union address. Those $56 billion would not increase the national debt but would be offset by cuts in other areas that would need to be agreed upon by Congress. According to an AAAS analysis, the additional $56 billion request would include $5.3 billion in R&D support, including an extra $2.1 billion for Department of Defense R&D, $1 billion for a Climate Resilience Fund, $970 mil- lion for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), $886 million for NASA, and $552 million for the National Science Foundation (NSF). Córdova Appointed NSF Director On March 12, France Córdova , former Purdue President, was approved as director of the Nation-

President’s 2015 Budget: Only Modest Increase in Federal Research On March 4, President Obama released his pro- posed FY 2015 budget, which included $135.4 billion in total federal research and development funding (see chart below). The amount remains within the spending caps established by the Budget Control Act and the December budget agreement. It is a 1.2% increase over 2014 levels, which, when inflation is taken into account, results in a 0.5% decrease to $5.1 million. His baseline budget provides $30.2 billion for NIH, and $7.3 billion for NSF, which is 1% over 2014 but the amount dedicated to research actu- ally lower by .03% from 2014. The DOE Office of Science saw an increase of less than 1%. At the March 4 Office of Science and Technology Policy Budget Briefing, John P. Holdren , Assistant to the President for Science and Technology and Director, OSTP, described the “biggest win- ners” under Obama’s baseline proposal as being the Department of Interior, which would receive $925 million in environmental and energy-related research; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which would see $688 million toward support of Earth-observing satellites and other research; the National Institute of Standards and Technology, slated to get $690 million for R&D; and research related to patient-centered

Science Agencies Funding (in billions)

President's Propsed FY 2015

Agency

FY 2012

FY 2013 with sequester cuts

FY 2014

NIH

30.046

28.604

29.63

30.3

NSF

5.614

6.884

7.172

7.3

DOE Office of Science

4.463

4.621

5.07

5.11

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al Science Foundation by the US Senate. She was nominated for the position by President Obama last summer. Cora Marrett has been acting director at NSF since March when Subra Suresh left to become president of Carnegie Mellon University.

As the US plays “a less dominant role in many ar- eas” of science and engineering activity, the report cautioned, further “potentially disruptive develop- ments” could be on the way. In a separate report that buttresses the NSF find- ings, Battelle, a leading global innovation firm, forecasts a total of $465 billion in US public and private research and development spending, still first in the world. However, the Battelle report also shows rapidly increasing spending by China, which has already enabled it to leapfrog past Japan into second place. If current trends continue, China is projected to overtake the United States by 2022. The full NSF report can be found at http://www. nsf.gov/statistics/seind14/

France Córdova

Córdova will now lead the federal agency that has a $7 billion budget to award grants for scientific research around the country. She stepped down in 2012 as Purdue’s president, a position she had held since 2007. An astrophysicist, Córdova served as NASA’s Chief Scientist in the 1990s. She also served as Chair of the Smithsonian Institu- tion’s Board of Regents. NSF Report Shows Shift in Global R&D Funding The 2014 edition of the NSF’s Science and Engi- neering Indicators , which summarizes trends in science and engineering research, education, work- force development and market economics, points to a decrease in the US and European Union (EU) share of global R&D investment and an increase in that of Asian countries. The amount that Asian countries spent on R&D in 2011 accounted for more than one-third of the world’s total, and in 2012 China spent slightly more of its gross domestic product on science than the EU did as a whole. The report indicates that the US and Europe no longer monopolize global R&D. The portion of the world’s R&D per- formed in the US and Europe has decreased since 2001 by 37% to 30% in the US and from 26% to 22% in Europe. During the same period, the share of global R&D performed by Asian countries in- creased from 25% to 34%, with China leading the way with its share growing from just 4% to 15% during the same period. The report also cites a hefty increase in the num- ber of published papers from Asian countries, but points out that the US remains the leading producer of highly cited articles.

Holt Won’t Seek Reelection

Another advocate for science re- search has announced the he will not run for office in 2014. Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.) announced on February 18 that he will not seek reelection. “There is no hidden motive for

Rush Holt

my decision,” Holt said. “As friends who have worked with me know, I have never thought that the primary purpose of my work was reelection and I have never intended to make service in the House my entire career. For a variety of reasons, personal and professional, all of them positive and optimistic, the end of this year seems to me to be the right time to step aside and ask the voters to select the next representative.” Holt is the son of former senator Rush D. Holt (D-W.Va.). He worked as a nuclear physicist and starred on Jeopardy! before joining Congress in 1999. He is the 20th House member and ninth Democrat to announce he won’t seek reelection this year.

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Subgroups

computational approach to constructing structural ensembles of IDPs to provide a picture of their energy landscapes. Tzachi Hagai , from Madan Babu’s laboratory at the Unviersity of Cambridge, gave the second Molecular Kinetics Postdoctoral Award presentation and discussed bioinformatics analyses of host-mimicking linear motifs in the regulation of viral proteins. Mark Bowen , Stony Brook University, followed with a presentation of how the NMDA receptor may be allosterically modulated by compaction of its disordered intra- cellular C-terminal domain. The symposium concluded with an anchoring keynote lecture by Rohit Pappu , Washington Uni- versity, who described a framework that integrates polymer theory and atomistic simulation to de- code the sequence-ensemble relationships of IDPs. In particular, Pappu discussed how charge charac- teristics of IDPs govern the globule-coil transition and how the theoretical framework can be used to guide the tuning of the peptide sequence to achieve ensembles with specific characteristics. — Jianhan Chen and Ben Schuler , Program Co-Chairs BIV Biophysics in the cell comes alive at the BIV symposium The fourth symposium of the Biopolymers In Vivo (BIV) subgroup, held at the Biophysical Society Meeting in San Francisco, was very suc- cessful and featured many exciting lectures. The mission of the BIV subgroup, founded four years ago by Margaret Cheung and Pernilla Wittung- Stafshede , is to promote the quantitative under- standing of living systems from the molecular to the whole organism level. BIV is interested in how---and whybiomolecular processes differ be- tween test tube and cell. This year’s BIV program chairs, Gilad Haran and Jeffrey Skolnick , chose the theme of molecular machines and how they func- tion inside cells. Keynote speaker Judith Frydman highlighted her recent work onTRiC/CCT chaperones, while Julia

IDP The 8 th Annual IDP Subgroup Symposium in San Francisco had the theme Intrinsic Protein Disorder: Structure and Mechanisms and catered to a large audience. The keynote lecture by Jane Clark , University of Cambridge, focused on an impressive array of structural and kinetic experi- ments to inform on mechanisms of IDP interac- tions via induced fit and conformational selection. Clark also discussed several questions central to understanding the principles of IDP interactions, including the dependence of binding kinetics on the level of residual structure, salt concentration, and charge properties. Robert Best , of NIH, followed with a description of his recent coarse-grained modeling study of IDP binding to one or more specific targets. An- drea Soranno , from Ben Shculer’s laboratory at the University of Zurich, gave the first Molecular Ki- netics Postdoctoral Research Award presentation, which combined single molecule fluorescence approaches and polymer theory to describe how crowding affects the conformational ensembles of IDPs. This was followed by Jean Baum, from Rutgers University, who spoke about the modula- tion of conformations and aggregation kinetics of N-terminal acetylated alpha-synuclein by binding of copper ions and beta-synuclein based on a set of clever NMR experiments. Michael Woodside , Unviersity of Alberta, Canada, ended this session with a discussion of his intriguing visualization of diverse transient structures in small oligomers of alpha-synuclein detected by pulling experiments with optical tweezers. After a short break, Richard Kriwacki , from St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, discussed the functional roles of dual cyclin binding motifs in p21, regulation of p27 by tyrosine phosphoryla- tion and his most recent efforts in developing small molecule inhibitors of p27 for combating hearing loss. Martin Blackledge , of the Institut de Biologie Structurale, France, described his

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Good food and conversation were enjoyed by everyone at the BIV symposium din- ner at Buca di Beppo’s.

Kardon presented new work on triple-A unfoldas- es from Tania Baker’s lab. Ron Elber developed a model for coiled coil conformational transitions, Steve Gross showed how competing motors affect cargo transport, and Zan Schulten talked about her full cell microbial simulations. Postdoctoral fellows Sarah Rouse , Rudra Kafle , and Andreas Vaskedis , who each received a BIV travel award, presented short talks. The session was closed by Sunney Xie with his final keynote about supercoil- ing’s effects on transcription. We are very grateful to our sponsors for making this wonderful symposium possible. Officer elections were held and plans for the up- coming year were discussed at the BIV business meeting. The main topics were the subgroup’s plan to enlist BIV student and postdoc representa-

tives to reach out to the younger scientists, and the institution of a BIV junior faculty award. The BIV subgroup is also excited about serving as a vec- tor to widely advertise the impact of pioneering ideas in the field, in vivo biophysicist’s research, and upcoming worldwide conferences devoted to the study of cellular processes. We will soon have a prize for best BIV logo design by students or post- docs: stay tuned for more information in an up- coming newsletter. We are extremely excited about the growing importance of in vivo biophysics, and we hope that many of you will join the ranks of the BIV subgroup!

— Lila Gierasch , Silvia Cavagnero , and Martin Gruebele, Former, current, and future BIV chairs

Annual Meeting Survey Winners

Congratulations to Huinan Li , Texas A&M University, and Irma Martisiene , Lithuanian University of Health Sciences, for winning complimentary registration to the Biophysical Soci- ety's 59th Annual Meeting in Baltimore, Maryland, February 7-11, 2015. Their names were selected from among all the meeting at- tendees who submitted a complete 2014 Annual Meeting survey. Feedback from the survey is used for the planning of future meetings. Thanks to all attendees who took the time to complete the questionnaire.

Huinan Li

Irma Martisiene

Presorted First Class Mail U.S. Postage PAID Claysburg, PA Permit #6

Biophysical Society

11400 Rockville Pike, Suite 800 Rockville, Maryland 20852

UPCOMING EVENTS

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER APRIL 2014

May

June

July

August August 3–7, 2014 18 th International Biophysics Congress Brisbane, Queensland http://www.iupab2014.org/ August 24–29 ICMRBS 2014 - XXVI International Conference for Magnetic Resonance in Biological Systems Dallas, Texas http://www2.biochem.wisc.edu/ icmrbs/?p=210%20

May 4–9, 2014 Electronic Processes in Organic Materials Lucca, Italy http://www.grc.org/programs. aspx?year=2014&program= elecproc May 27–30, 2014 The Second International Conference on Radiation and Dosimetry in Various Fields of Research (RAD 2014) Nis, Serbia http://www.rad2014.elfak.rs/ welcome.php

July 5–6, 2014 Endothelial Cell Phenotypes in Health & Disease (GRS) Girona–Costa Brava, Spain http://www.grc.org/programs. aspx?year=2014&program=grs_ endo July 12–17, 2014 European Bioenergetics Conference (EBEC 2014) Lisbon, Portugal http://www.ebec2014.org/

June 13–15, 2014 The Third International Conference on Analytical and Nanoanalytical Methods for Biomedical and Environmental Sciences Brasov, Romania http://icanmbes.unitbv.ro/ index.html June 18–20, 2014 Algebraic and Discrete Biological Models for Undergraduate Courses, a NIMBioS Tutorial Knoxville, Tennessee http://nimbios.org/tutorials/ TT_mathbio

Please visit www.biophysics.org for a complete list of upcoming events.