Biophysical Society Bulletin | April 2026

Annual Meeting

2026 Student Research Achievement Award Poster Competition Winners The 35 winners of the annual Student Research Achievement Awards (SRAA) were recognized at the 70th Biophysical Soci ety Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony on February 23, 2026. These students were selected by judges from the Society’s Subgroups for their outstanding presentations during the poster competition. A total of 153 students participated in the competition. The 2026 SRAA winners are: Bioenergetics, Mitochondria, and Metabolism Subgroup Sarah Crotzer , New Mexico Tech, USA In Silico Mutagenesis Reveals Residues That Modulate ATP Syn thase Transmembrane Domain Leak Channel Behavior Bioengineering Subgroup Avisekh Pal , Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Centre for Nano science and Engineering, India Label-Free Identification of Bacteria and Beads via Micropore Translocation Dynamics Helena Miljkovic , École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland SICM as a Novel Tool: From Single-Protein Detection to Material Properties of Biomolecular Condensates Biological Fluorescence Subgroup Himanshi Devi , Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India Lysine Succinylation in Charge Rich Proteins Measured Using a Novel Label Free Tool Biopolymers in Vivo Subgroup Yu-Huan Wang , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA Fluorescence Imaging of Gene Loci in Escherichia coli Reveals Marker Size-Dependent Dynamics and Spatially Heterogeneous Chromosome Confinement Tommaso Inzani , Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy Polymer Conformational Entropy as Driver of Complex Coacervation Channels, Receptors, and Transporters Subgroup Sarah Luise Schmidt , Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland Unravelling Rapid Kinetics Driving Human Daylight Vision Brice Durocher , University of Iowa, USA Structural Basis of the Tok1 Potassium Channel from Candida albicans

Kaei Ryu , Jichi Medical University, Japan The Extracellular Turret Is Essential for Gating in Both HCN and Kv Channels Lasse Desdorf , Aarhus University, Denmark Structure-Guided Design for NBCn2: Routes to Selective Inhibition Arnav Paul , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA Mechanistic Insights into Glucose Transport for PfHT1 from Mo lecular Dynamics and Graph Attention Models Cryo-EM Subgroup Vinh Truong , St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA Structural Basis of End Recognition and Pairing by Cut-and-Paste Transposons Haley Johnson , Baylor College of Medicine, USA (wwPDB Spon sored Winner) Basehunter, a New Approach to Determining DNA Sequence in Cryo-Electron Density Maps, Reveals DNA Sequence-Dependent Capture of Gyrase Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Subgroup Virginia Jiang , Princeton University, USA Development of a Multiscale Framework for Engineering Protein Condensates as Microreactors Nicholas Razo , Washington University in St. Louis, USA Dynamic Time Warping for Sequence Alignments Macromolecular Machines and Assemblies Subgroup Alana Gudinas , Stanford University, USA Ion-Selective Structural Transitions of a Disordered Repeats-in-Toxin Protein Domain Martin Yepes , Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA Substrate Binding Sites and Conformational Dynamics of the Bacterial Peptidoglycan Synthase Complex Luke Johnson , University of Leeds, United Kingdom Single-Molecule Fluorescence Provides Insights into the Rate-Limiting Step in BAM-Mediated OMP Folding Mechanobiology Subgroup Natalie Rogers , University of Michigan, USA Mapping the Lipid Environment of Structures that Sense Plasma Membrane Tension Membrane Fusion, Fission, and Traffic Subgroup Ana Paula Vargas Ruiz , University of California, Berkeley, USA A FRET Based Molecular Tension Sensor Reveals Actin-Driven Force Dynamics in Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis Anelise Hutson , Case Western Reserve University, USA Structural Insights into Regulation of Mitochondrial Fission Membrane Structure and Function Subgroup Melissa Hübschen , Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Freiburg, Germany Excipients vs. Lipophilic Plasma Components: Investigation of the Binding Mechanism of Lipids, Fatty Acids, and Detergents with Human Serum Albumin

April 2026

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