Biophysical Newsletter - August 2014

2

2014

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

AUGUST

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY

Message from the President It is time to make preparations for attending the 2015 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting! The call for papers, which includes the symposia and workshop titles and speakers, was recently mailed to all Society members. The Meeting, which will be held in Baltimore, Maryland, February 7-11, 2015, again features a program full of exciting science.

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

Meeting co-chairs Enrique de la Cruz and Karen Fleming , along with their committee members, have been working since October 2013 to develop a program that not only addresses the breadth of areas represented by Society members, but also incorporates new and emerging areas in biophysics. Devel- oping such a program for a field as multidisciplinary and rapidly changing as biophysics is a daunting task. A glance through the abstract topic categories, which are updated annually, illustrates the rapid progress of biophysics. The breadth and diversity of the Annual Meeting reflects the active participation of many Society members in the program development. From the call for topics that goes out each year to our 9,000 members, to the selection of over 500 speakers for platform sessions from among the submitted abstracts, to the independently designed subgroup programs, the Annual Meeting program is developed by and consists of working biophysi- cists representing a rich diversity of demographics, perspectives, techniques, and research areas. • The National Lecture by Klaus Schulten will reveal the contributions of computation to seminal discover- ies in biophysics. • In keeping with 2015 designated by UNESCO as the Year of Light symposia, including Bacterial Subcel- lular Dynamics at Super Resolution, Membrane Trafficking , and Advances in Electron Microscopy, illustrate the central role of biophysicists in exploiting light to reveal fundamental features of biological structure and function. • The engagement of biophysics in the emerging areas of systems and bioengineering research is evidenced in Emergent Properties and Collective Behaviors of Complex System and Artificial Cells: Understanding and Engineering . • Attend the Systems Biology Approaches to Neuroscience to better appreciate the contributions that biophys- ics can make to the Brain Initiative. • The Cardiomyopathies and Contractile Proteins symposium provides an opportunity to learn about the basic research performed by the Society membership that is directed toward elucidating molecular mechanisms of disease. As biophysicists, we know that attendance at the Annual Meeting is crucial to remaining professionally cur- rent. As PIs, we know the role the Meeting has played in our own development and its importance to the students and postdocs in our labs. Many of us joined the Biophysical Society in order to present our first posters or platform talks. Many of us work in departments in which there are no other biophysicists. For us, each Meeting is like a homecoming where we reunite with and learn from old connections and friends and where we develop new collaborations. Included in this newsletter is a poster with the scientific program for you to post and distribute. Spread the word about the benefits of attending the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting with others. I look forward to seeing you in Baltimore! The symposia and workshop topics illustrate the breadth of both the meeting and the discipline of biophysics.

Society Office Ro Kampman Executive Officer Newsletter Ray Wolfe 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.

–Dorothy Beckett , President