BPS2026 Program Book

Career Development Center Workshop Networking for Biophysicists: How to Create Your Unicorn Career 9:00 am - 10:00 am, Esplanade, Room 151 In this session, we will discuss how to leverage networking to create a unique, customized career, which we call Your Unicorn Career. Your Unicorn Career is an authentic career that brings you joy, meaning, and money, and we will address how to use a data-driven process to elucidate what Your Unicorn Career can be. We will address how to understand your unique value, skills and interests and how to align that with employers who will hire you. We will discuss various methods for finding and building win-win collaborations with people in different pro fessions and pathways to create opportunities for your unicorn career to come to fruition. Exhibitor Presentation Bruker 9:30 am - 11:00 am, Esplanade, Room 157 AI Driven Advanced AFM Imaging and Analysis of Cellular and Tissue Samples: Innovations in Large-Area Mapping and Mechanobiology Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM) enables nanoscale mapping of stiff ness, adhesion, and viscoelasticity, critical for studying cells, tissues, and biomaterials. Yet, challenges such as sample roughness and limited lateral range restrict large-area mechanobiological imaging. We present an advanced AFM concept integrating SmartMapping with the newly developed CellWizard™ Stage, which coordinates AFM head motors and XYZ-piezo movement for automated, high-precision mapping over a 38 × 38 mm range. Its multi-compartment design accommodates multiple samples, enabling high-throughput, reproducible measurements with out user intervention. The AI-guided optical segmentation automatically identifies single cells or regions of interest and generates AFM scan lists, facilitating intelligent navigation and continuous imaging across wells or slides. This combina tion of SmartMapping and AI segmentation ensures seamless, large area, and drift-free mechanical mapping. Using this system, we compared Cytochalasin D–treated and control 3T3 fibroblasts, revealing time-lapse mechanical and structural changes. We further characterized 3D SKOV-3 spheroids, zebrafish tumors, and mouse brain tissue, correlating regional mechanical variations with structural organization. Together, these advances establish a new paradigm for automated, intelligent, and large-scale AFM imaging, greatly enhancing throughput and precision in mechanobiology and expanding AFM’s applicability to complex biological systems. Speaker Ming Ye, Applications Scientist, Bruker Nano Surfaces Exhibits 10:00 am - 5:00 pm, Exhibit Halls ABC Coffee Break 10:15 am - 11:00 am, Exhibit Halls ABC

Career Development Center Workshop What Can You Do with a PhD? A Lot More Than You Might Think 10:30 am - 11:30 am, Esplanade, Room 151 Dr. Rick McGee and his research team have been following several hundred biomedical PhD students with annual in-depth interviews since they started their degrees until they ‘differentiate’ into a variety of careers. This talk and discussion will present some of the findings from their ongoing research with a focus on what factors and preferences lead individuals to pursue a large variety of different careers. Equally im portant will be insights into the pathways they take and the importance of prospective efforts to explore possible careers to decide which ones ‘fit’ each person’s skills and interests, scientific and personal. Prelimi nary findings with respect to the ‘phenotype’ of those who end up as faculty in research-intensive universities also will be presented. Exhibitor Presentation Refeyn 10:30 am - 12:00 pm, Esplanade, Room 158 Symposium Emergent Properties of Coupled Membranes and Condensates 10:45 am - 12:45 pm, Room 301/302 Chair Benjamin Machta, Yale University, USA 78-Symp 10:45 am DECODING THE MECHANISMS OF CONDENSATE-MEMBRANE INTER ACTIONS IN CHANGING ENVIRONMENTS: THE FOCUS ON NEURONAL SYNAPSES. Dragomir Milovanovic 79-Symp 11:10 am PROTEIN-LIPID PHASE COUPLING IN INTRACELLULAR TRANSPORT. Jonathon Nixon-Abell 80-Symp 11:35 am FORMATION AND PROPERTIES OF LIPID MEMBRANES AROUND COAC ERVATE DROPLETS. Christine D. Keating 81-SympSelect 12:00 pm KINETICS MECHANISM OF VIRAL GENOME PACKAGING BY HIV-1 VIRI ONS. Ioulia F. Rouzina , Orlando Guzman, Robijn F. Bruinsma No Abstract 12:20 pm PREWETTING COUPLES THE MEMBRANE PHASE TRANSITION TO CYTO PLASMIC CONDENSATES ENABLING DIVERSE FUNCTIONS. Benjamin Machta Symposium Structural Evolution of Cellular Motility Machinery 10:45 am - 12:45 pm, Room 303/304 Chair Edward Egelman, University of Virginia, USA 82-Symp 10:45 am THE ORIGIN OF MOTILITY CLARIFIED BY USING A MINIMAL SYNTHETIC BACTERIUM, JCVI-SYN3. Makoto Miyata No Abstract 11:10 am TRANSLOCATING PROTEINS - SOME STRUCTURAL TALES. Susan Lea No Abstract 11:35 am STRUCTURE OF THE TRYPANOSOME MOTILITY MACHINERY BY CRYOEM. Kent Hill

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