Biophysical Newsletter - March 2014

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2014

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

MARCH

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY

Biophysicist in Profile DAUMANTAS MATULIS

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

When Daumantas Matulis was a high school student in Lithuania, an intimidat- ing teacher taught him the basics of chemistry. With this knowledge, he won third place in the Lithuanian National High School Olympiad. Now, many years later, he says, “I still consider this probably my greatest achievement.” After high school, Matulis enrolled in Vilnius University, studying biochemistry. It was there that he met Rex E. Lovrien , a professor from the University of Minnesota who would become his PhD advisor. In 1990, Lovrien had decided that potential scientists in the Baltics could benefit from training in the US, so he traveled to

“ I am grateful for my years in industry, where I got not only significant experience in drug design, but also the vision that all research is for the bet- ter understanding and better application to practice. ” – Daumantas Matulis

Vilnius to instruct the science majors there on how to do so. Lovrien explained how to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and Graduate Record Examinations (GRE), and taught the students how to apply to graduate schools in the US. Matulis traveled to Moscow to take the necessary tests, and after he passed, Lovrien paid for Matulis’s flight to the US.

Matulis entered the University of Minnesota and un- dertook rotations in a protein x-ray crystallography lab and an NMR lab. “I was happy with the help from my PhD committee. I am really indebted to them,” says Matulis, “ Douglas Ohlendorf and Leonard Ban- aszak taught me crystallography; Kevin Mayo and Clare Woodward taught me protein NMR and the use of hydrogen exchange to follow the protein folding.” Matulis eventually landed in Lovrien’s lab, studying protein ligand interac- tions with the emphasis of using ligands to protect, selectively precipitate, isolate, and purify proteins. Here he learned the method most important in his career—isothermal titration calorimetry—as well as the fundamentals of biothermodynamics. “I remember Rex ringing a bell in a corridor trying to attract graduate students and postdocs to listen to weekly presentations of departmental journal club and research reviews,” Matulis recalls. Following these presentations were “interesting discussions with students who are now prominent scientists, such as Vincent J. LiCata and Hiroki Morizono ,” he says. After finishing his PhD with Lovrien, Matulis obtained a postdoctoral posi- tion in the field of DNA biophysics with Victor Bloomfield . Bloomfield’s lab was home to a diverse group of postdocs who introduced Matulis to a variety of new fields: single molecule biophysics with Mark C. Williams ; dynamic light scattering with Christoph G. Baumann , Jeffrey J. Schwinefus , Jay R. Wenner , and Siddhartha Jena ; ultrasound velocity and densitometry with Besik Kankia ; and computational biophysics with Ioulia Rouzina and Karen Tang . Being exposed to this assortment of fields served as a great learning experience for Matulis, who himself began to focus on lipid, ion, and protein binding to DNA.

Society Office Ro Kampman Executive Officer

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.