Biophysical Society Bulletin | February 2020

Publications

Know the Editor Toshio Tsukiyama

Who would you like to sit next to at a dinner party? (Scien- tist or not) If it can be a dead person, Albert Einstein. I am not sure how well I could communicate with him but I would want to see how someone with such an exceptional intelligence talks. If it has to be someone alive, I would choose Michelle Obama. I want to ask her what it is like to be a first lady. At a cocktail party of non-scientists, how would you ex- plain what you do? We try to figure out how some cells in our body can live for years seemingly doing nothing. This cell state, quiescence, is essential for normal development and prevention of diseases like cancer, but how cells can enter, maintain, or exit from this state is largely unknown.

University of Washington School of Medicine Editor, Genome Biophysics

Toshio Tsukiyama

What are you currently working on that excites you? Mechanisms by which cell quiescence is controlled by chro- matin regulation. Quiescence is a reversible state in which cells stop doing a lot of things they normally do, such as tran- scription, for long-term survival. Turns out cells use amazing tricks to enter, maintain, and exit quiescence. What has been your biggest “aha” moment in science? That would be when I realized chromatin structure can be al- tered in an ATP-dependent fashion, and that unknown factor in cell extract was likely using ATP for the reaction. When I started that project, I did not expect any mechanism like this.

FollowBPS Journals on Twitter @BiophysJ @BiophysicistJ

BJ Highlights Early Career Researchers For the second year in a row, Editor-in-Chief Jane Dyson has curated a collection of articles published in Biophysical Journal by early career investigators.

Happy Anniversary The Biophysical Society is celebrating 60 years of the Biophysical Journal .

The Society thanks all of the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board Members, reviewers, authors, and readers for their commitment to making this the most important journal in biophysics today.

To view the collection from last year and this latest collection, see Spotlight on Early Career Investigators at https:/www.cell.com/biophysj/collections/

February 2020

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