Biophysical Netsletter - May 2014

6

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

2014

MAY

Biophysicist in Profile JOE MINDELL

JoeMindell spent a lot of time as a childwonderinghow thingsworked.He benefited fromhaving an engineer for a father.Mindell says, “He understood and explained the innerworkings of things beau- tifully tomy brother andme.He had a very practical understanding of these things that profoundly openedup theworld tous.” In addition to regularly taking books aboutmath and science out of the library,Mindell looked forward to the elementary school science fair every year, so that he coulddelve into a project thatwoulddeepenhis understanding of theworld aroundhim. Inhigh school,Mindell became interested inphysics, especially inhow it explained theworld around him.He thought that hemightmajor inphysics upon enteringYaleUniversity, but he explains, “At the time, physics itself seemed focusedon elementary particles, whichwere far enough from the everyday TheDoubleHelix by JamesD.Watson , and “was struckbyWatson talking about howunderstanding helical diffraction required thinking about Bessel functions. And even though I didn’t knowwhat thosewere, it clearly confirmed the connectionbe- tweenmathematical thinking andbiological problem solving”Mindell says. These formative experiences convincedMindell to studymolecular biophysics andbiochemistry, inwhichhe receivedhis Bachelor of Science degree. After graduating fromYale, he studied at Albert EinsteinCollege ofMedicine and earned a combined MD-PhD.He completedhis PhDwork in AlanFinkelstein’s lab, using electrostatic analysis of charges ondiphtheria toxin channels as a tool tomap theirmembrane topology.He then completed a residency at Brigham andWomen’sHospital with an eye towardbecoming a nephrologist, due tohis interest in renal salt transport.Mindell found, however, that hewasmore drawn to a life in research than to pursuing a career as amedical doctor, sohe joined ChristopherMiller’s lab at BrandeisUniversity as a postdoc. InMiller’s lab,Mindell workedon theClC family of chloride channels. “For the first few years Iwas cloningnewhomologs of the family from the shark, whichhas an interesting salt transport system.Unfortunately, in the end, the proteins I foundwere frustrating, as they didnot lend themselves to furtherwork,” he says. He thenbegan toworkonmembrane protein structural biology.Mindell says, “Iwas able to form two-dimensional crystals of aClCwhich led to the first structural pictures of this family of proteins.” Soon afterMindell leftMiller’s lab, however,Miller discovered that the proteinMindell hadworkedon was not a channel at all, but rather a proton-coupled chloride transporter.Givenhis previous interest in transporters, fromhis daysworkingwithkidneys,Mindell decided to embrace this revelation.He explains, “Iwentwith it and gradually shiftedmywhole lab to study transporters, which are generally much lesswell understood than ion channels.” Mindell continues toworkwith transporters today, as a Senior Investigator in the intramural program at theNational Institute ofNeurologicalDisorders andStroke,NIH.His lab studies structure-function “ Our contactwith the peoplearoundushas tremendous influenceon ourwork... ” – JoeMindell world that they didn’t drawme in.”He began taking classes inneuroscience, where hewas first exposed to the idea of solving biological problemswith concepts fromphysics. Around the same time,Mindell read