Biophysical Netsletter - May 2014

8

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

2014

MAY

Biophysical Journal Corner

Special Issue: Focuson QuantitativeCell Biology ThisNovember, Biophysical

Major goals of quantitative cell biology are to further our understanding of the interactions betweenmolecular networks within cells and to elucidate how these interactions are regulated. Understanding suchmechanisms and interactions at the cellular level will require the concepts and methods of physics, chemistry,mathematics, en- gineering, and computational science.Thus, bio- physicsts are ideally suited to lead such research. The Biophysical Journal aims to publish the highest qualitywork, andwe expect that all the articles in this special issuewill be of sufficient importance to be of general interest to biophysicists, regard- less of their research specialty.To allow rigorous peerreview, the deadline for submission to this special issue on quantitative cell biology is July 1, 2014, and authors interested inhaving their work included in this issue should specify that they are interested in being considered for this issue in their cover letter. Instructions for authors canbe found at http:// download.cell.com/images/edimages/Biophys/In- structions_to_Authors.pdf. — Dave Piston , Editor, Cell Biophysics Section New&Notables Eachmonth a fewpapers are highlighted in BJ with aNew&Notable, which are commentaries that highlight a point, question, or controversy raised in the paper they discuss. Visit www.bio- physj.org/home to read these articles from a recent issue of BJ . Shedding Light onConfor- mationalDynamics inNa byChristofGrewer, which highlights the paper Correlat- ingChargeMovements with Local Conformational Changes of aNa+-CoupledCotransporter by IanForster and Monica Patti. Nanoscopic InjurywithMacroscopicConsequences: TauProteins asMediators ofDiffuse Axonal In- jury , byGuyGenin, whichhighlights the paper

Journal will publish a special is- sue focusing on quantitative cell biology.This venture recognizes the rapid growth of quantita- tive research in this area over the last few years.Traditionally, biophysics has thrived by apply- ing reductionist approaches to

DavidPiston

unravel biologicalmechanisms and, to this day, approaches such as single-moleculemicroscopy continue to bring fresh insights into the functions of cells and organisms. Of course, we also know that these biomolecules interact to form complex functional networks that oftendisplay emergent properties that would be difficult to predict solely from anunderstanding of the constituent parts. At the same time, we are learning that cell-to-cell variability is not only universal, it is also functionally important.Thus, in the sameways that single-molecule experiments have informed our understanding of functional distributions ofmolecules, single-cell experiments are revealing the significant biological consequenc- es of heterogeneity. Ongoing advances in instrumentation and com- putationalmodeling capabilities continue to fuel the growth of quantitative cell biology. Formany years, therewas awide gap betweenhigh-through- put genomic andproteomic technologies, which yielded vast numbers of parameters ensemble- averaged overmillions of cells, andmicroscopic or cytometricmethods, whichprovideddata on a limitednumber of parameters in single cells. However, improvements in sequencing technology nowpermit genome-wide quantitative analysis of single cells. At the same time, technological breakthroughs are leading tomulti-parametric data from single cells, and together, these tech- nologies are leading to a convergence of high- throughput -omics and single-cell biology. Sitting on top of all these data aremathematical and computationalmodels, which are critical toward developing a quantitative understanding of such large and complex datasets.

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