Biophysical Society Bulletin | February 2023

February 2023

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Best of Biophysical Journal Symposium For the third year, Biophysical Journal will host a symposium at the BPS Annual Meeting to highlight the excellent science published in the journal. This year’s event will be titled Biophysical Journal : FromSingle Molecules to Systems. The speakers, including the Paper of the Year-Early Career Investigator Award recipient, will be authors from the past year invited to present about their articles, representing a subset of the high-quality research published. The Paper of the Year-Early Career Investigator Award recognizes an early career researcher who has published an outstanding paper in the journal. The speakers will be Markus Deserno , Carnegie Mellon University, USA; Daniel J. Dickinson , University of Texas at Austin, USA; Kallol Gupta , Yale University, USA; Rebecca J. Howard , StockholmUniversity, Sweden; Valerie Tutwiler , Rutgers University, USA; and Carlas S. Smith (Paper of the Year-Early Career Investiga tor Award), Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands. The symposium will take place at the BPS Annual Meeting in San Diego on February 21 from 10:45 AM to 12:45 PM. Please join us to hear about the exciting work of these leaders in biophysics.

Kallol Gupta

Markus Deserno

Daniel J. Dickinson

Rebecca J. Howard

Valerie Tutwiler

Carlas S. Smith

FollowAnnual Meeting events on Facebook, Twitter, and the BPS Blog throughout the Annual Meeting. Follow along using the hashtag #bps2023

Inside

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President’s Message Biophysicist in Profile

Annual Meeting Communities Member Corner

Stay Connected with BPS

Public Affairs Publications

Grants & Opportunities

Career Development

Important Dates

President’s Message

Notes to Self As my term as BPS president draws to a close, I findmyself reflecting on what we as a scientific society have accomplished in these short months. In the President’s Message in the De cember issue of the BPS Bulletin , Ex ecutive Officer Jennifer Pesanelli , with a little help fromme, summarized the outcomes of our strategic planning initiative, which brought into focus our values and goals moving forward. In

But perhaps a more tangible example of my efforts is the Black in Biophysics Presidential Symposium, borrowing the moniker, and the inspiration, from the Black in Biophysics movement. The symposium, a showcase event at the BPS Annual Meeting in February, features an amazing lineup of speakers talking not about the importance of diversity, which they are often expect ed to do as a highly demanding but uncompensated and poorly acknowledged side-gig. Instead, they will embody the true power of diversity with a superb scientific program as a new generation of trailblazers. Commentary will be provided by Bil Clemons and Theanne Griffith , who are leading advocates for the importance of such events. Related to the historical challenges of racism is the persistent and insidious problemof overt and subliminal bigotry toward women and other minoritized groups. Remember the Heidi and Howard experiment at the Columbia Business School in which two student groups were asked to evaluate the same high-profile resume, one under the name Heidi and the other, Howard? Both candidates were deemed highly qualified for the job, but the one group just didn’t like Heidi—she seemed aggressive, and they weren’t sure she could be trusted. Howard, on the other hand, was considered a great catch, a real go-getter. He was a good “fit.” It is true that likability has different criteria for men vs. women in our society, andmaybe there’s not much we can or should do about that. But we can, and should, stop this measure fromplay ing such an important role in our evaluation of candidates for jobs and leadership positions, and examine our unconscious biases that get in the way of building a more diverse and highly capable work force. In a study out of the University of Toronto reported in Administra tive Science Quarterly , African-American or Asian job applicants who “whiten” their applications by deleting references to race or culture receive more interviews than those who don’t (Kang, S. K., K. A. DeCelles, A. Tilcsik, and S. Jun. 2016. Whitened résumés: race and self-presentation in the labor market. Admin. Sci. Q. 61: 469-502). The effect is more than two-fold for African Americans, even when dealing with companies claiming to value diversity. Within BPS, we have worked hard over the years to promote women andminoritized groups; let us apply the same intention ality on the home turf of our own university departments and other workplaces. There, the barriers can be even greater. We know each other a little too well, like siblings, and the wish to evolve can turn into battles that are hard to win. I will be making efforts to “call in” my colleagues, rather than calling out. “I know you are, but what am I?” will not get me very far! As the award-winning writer and social commentator Roxane Gay said in her 2017Winter InstituteWI12 speech, “We no longer have time for allies and allyship. We cannot afford to allow ourselves the comfortable distance of allyship. The challenges the underrepresented, marginalized, and vulnerable face have to be challenges we are all willing to take on, too. Everything is

Gail Robertson

other monthly columns, I focused on issues like diversity, equity, and inclusion; mentoring; and the persistent challenges hindering real progress for women. In this month’s column, my last, I have a fewmore things to say about these matters, in part as reminders tomyself that there is much left to do. Rescue Parents “Career womenmust work like they have no family and parent like they have no job.” This was a viral meme in 2022 that reso nated withmany. For several decades, despite the challenges, we women hadmanaged to pull it off, mostly by gravitating to part ners wanting to share equally in home activities and obligations. It wasn’t easy, but a precarious balance making career and family possible was struck. Then came the pandemic, and the childcare so essential tomaking it all work evaporated. The density of workers at the lab bench diminished in response to the higher calling of children at home. Many mothers and fathers found themselves grounded at one end of the work-life teeter-totter. Those of us trying to keep the laboratory operation afloat can kvetch, but there is little we can do in the near term about the shortage of childcare and its day-to-day unpredictability. We need a more resilient childcare system that has more availability and a deeper pool of workers to fill in when the inevitable spread of illness affects them as well. As we try to regain our momen tum in this peripandemic time, we should rattle the cages of our universities, companies, and statehouses to domore to ensure a more stable, more equitable workforce by supporting more childcare services. In the meantime, we must continue to support the parents of young children in our employ by allowing the flexibility they need to tend to their children’s needs while main taining their own career trajectories. We ignore the issue at our own peril: many studies show that, in the absence of adequate childcare, women choose to work rather than have children. The ramifications for our future workforce, in all aspects of society, are obvious. Don’t Just Sit There, Do Something! I have tried to usemy platformas BPS president to actively fight racismand other forms of bigotry. I still wonder whether writing this column is doing something, since I ammostly just sitting here.

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President’s Message

now political, and we have a responsibility tomake the political personal. We have to fight for and with each other.” I would love to hear from the BPSmembership what you have been doing to fight racism and bigotry, when you’re not just (figuratively) sitting there. And let’s keep the ideas coming—promoting diversity is foundational to BPS as an explicit goal moving forward. Lead with Love If there is one thing I can do right now, it is to combat despon dency and the need to cocoon. This was a common reaction to the pandemic. While some found newmotivation working from home, the flip side is a loss of camaraderie and the collaboration and support that comes fromworking together in the same physical space. I’m thinking especially of graduate students, who sometimes sit alone in their offices or at the lab bench, their clink ing glassware the only echoes in the halls of academia. It can be a lonely experience. Supervising faculty need to see this challenge for what it is and what it is not. We need to fight the malaise that happens when esprit de corps flags, and not blame it on a lack of a trainee’s self-discipline. We need to get more involved in gen erating energy in the laboratory, to help regenerate the magic we experienced previously. Maybe they’ll want to show upmore with a little more encouragement. A little more support. A little (dare I say it?) unconditional love. Tell them you believe in them, even (or especially) after they are conspicuously absent the day before. As BPSmember Edwin Antony offers, “I prefer to take a positive spin on it. [The pandemic] did teachme to redefine success in research. All around, the importance of paying attention to the mental state of the team [has risen] to the top of the list.” If that strikes the curmudgeons in the audience as coddling or indulgent, hold a mirror up to your face the next time you walk into a room and are greeted warmly by one or more of your colleagues. I’ve noticed even the toughest among us grinning like children getting a warmhug. Emerging frompandemic paralysis requires a focus on the mental health of our trainees (and ourselves). I keep a stack of an old book, Feeling Good: The NewMood Therapy by David Burns , inmy office cupboard and hand it out to trainees as if it were a cure for the common cold. The book takes a cognitive therapy approach, providing a set of mental exercises to retrain the brain to think in a different, more positive, more productive way. It worked for me when I was a graduate student; maybe it’ll work for you, too. And whether you are a graduate student or Nobel laureate, try not to say anything to yourself that you wouldn’t say to your best friend. Or your dog. In fact, talk to yourself like you would your dog, per another popular meme: “Hey sweet girl! Look at that beautiful belly! You’re so clever! Want a treat?” Think Bigger On the scientific front, I propose more aspiration. In our recent BPS strategic planning exercise, we landed on the following for our vision: to harness the full potential of biophysics to seek

knowledge, improve the human condition, and preserve the plan et for future generations. A Council member not able to attend the meeting later asked, reasonably, are we really doing anything to preserve the planet? As citizens, we recognize the importance of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and addressing climate change; as individuals, we may have resolved to take fewer plane trips, drive electric vehicles, install solar panels, or eat less meat. But how can we, as a scientific field, help forestall climate change or other catastrophic threats? I’m spit-balling here, but I’d like to start the conversation. Our col leagues have already made some important, or even transforma tive, inroads. For example, did you know that plant-basedmeats were developed using thermodynamic principles and condensate biology? Experimentalists have manipulated biopolymers of plant proteins and polysaccharides at different concentrations, pH, mineral composition, and temperature to undergo phase separa tion through thermodynamic incompatibility and coacervation, via repulsive or attractive interactions, respectively. Ultimately this process produces the fiber strands we critically associate with meat. Given recent reports that plant-based burgers generate 98% less greenhouse gas emissions thanmeat burgers (Bryant, C. J. 2022. Plant-based animal product alternatives are healthier and more environmentally sustainable than animal products. Future Foods 6, 10.1016/j.fufo.2022.100174), this emerging industry is proof that innovation using biophysics methodologies can effect real change. Inmany national laboratories and research institutions around the world, work is focused on planting non-food bioenergy crops such as switchgrass, energy sorghum, or poplar onmarginal, nonagricultural land. Much focus is on the remaining biomass after sugars are extracted, particularly engineering microbes to improve biomass deconstruction andmaximize yield of aromatic monomers that can be used as fuel or useful chemicals. According to TimDonohue , Director of the Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center at the University of Wisconsin, “biophysical approaches will help address this grand societal challenge by contributing to the cost-effective synthesis of fuels and chemicals from renew able resources, sustainable food production, and providing new sources of energy for use by all citizens of the planet.” Lest I sound like Mr. McGuire in The Graduate (“One word: plas tics.”), I’mnot suggesting all biophysicists should study plants. We should continue to skirt the diffraction limit of light and find evenmore ways tomeasure force and resolve structure at the nanoscopic scale. But in somany ways our field is, by definition, interdisciplinary; the future of biophysics holds power and prom ise as we step across boundaries, technical and social, to protect and expand our world. — Gail Robertson , President

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Biophysicist in Profile

Taekjip Ha Area of Research Single molecule studies of genome maintenance

Institution Johns Hopkins University

At-a-Glance

Taekjip Ha , Professor of Biophysics and Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, is the Biophysical Society’s incoming president. His lab uses single-molecule imaging and manipulation techniques to study protein functions and chromatin dynamics and uses the knowledge gained to engineer new protein behaviors and functions. To young biophysicists, he offers this advice: “There is so much to learn and so little time, so optimize your trajectory to maximize learning.”

Taekjip Ha

Taekjip “TJ” Ha , incoming Biophysical Society president, grew up in Seoul, South Korea. His parents worked in early child hood education, in classroom teaching and administration. As a young person, he was fascinated with early 20th century physicists and wanted to become a theoretical physicist. He studied physics as an undergraduate at Seoul National University, and then traveled to the United States to pursue his PhD in physics at the University of California, Berkeley with advisers Shimon Weiss and Daniel Chemla . “It was only after joining a physics PhD program that I realized that there was experimental physics that had enough theory—at least for me,” Ha shares. “My interest shifted from semiconductor physics to chemical physics and eventually to biophysics, largely through a series of accidental meetings with scientists and their work.” During his PhD study, Ha built a near-field scanning optical microscope that enabled high time and spatial resolution. Weiss saw the potential for the techniques Ha was develop ing to be used in single-molecule research and encouraged him. The two regularly had long discussions, pitching and poking holes in ideas for research directions. After completing his PhD, Ha worked as a postdoctoral fel low—first for a year in Weiss and Chemla’s lab at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and then for two and a half years with Steven Chu at Stanford University. In both labs, he worked on single-molecule fluorescence studies of biomole cules. “As a postdoc, I was looking for a biological system to study using single-molecule FRET when I read a review paper on helicases and kinesin written by Tim Lohman and Ron Vale ,” Ha says. “I contacted Tim to start our helicase collaboration and that led me to my current and long-running interest in proteins that function in the maintenance of our genome integrity.”

Following his second postdoctoral position, in August 2000 he was hired as an assistant professor in the Department of Physics and Center for Biophysics and Computational Biology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC). He remained there until 2015, during which time he became a full professor and served as co-director of the Center for Physics of Living Cells (2008–2015) and director of the Center for Biophysics and Quantitative Biology (2013–2014). Zaida “Zan” Luthey-Schulten met Ha when his family moved into the house across from her home in Urbana, Illinois. “Later in the Physics Department at the UIUC, he and my husband, Klaus Schulten , were the first director (Ha) and co-director (Schulten) of our NSF Physics Frontier Center in Biological Physics: Center for the Physics of Living Cells (CPLC),” Lu they-Schulten recalls. “Part of the success of CPLC was the emphasis on joint experimental and theoretical/computa tional biological physics starting with the directors and in our summer school and center projects.” Luthey-Schulten and Ha began a collaboration, publishing together for the first time in Nature in 2014. “Then again in 2021 ( Nature Communications ) and 2020 ( Frontiers in Molec ular Biosciences ) on stochastic simulations and experimen tal measurements using super-resolution single-molecule imaging of small RNA (SgrS) interacting/regulating mRNA of ptsG, the main sugar transporter in bacteria. More recently, we are working on imaging and analyzing cell division in the living minimal cell JCVI-syn3A and comparisons to some of its precursors. Taekjip’s lab has also measured the location of key proteins in the minimal cell involved in sugar transport and cell division,” she explains. “As I have been focusing the ef forts of my lab to build a complete 4DWCM of the minimal cell over the complete cell cycle, this is extremely exciting work for me. Taekjip’s lab is so talented and work on major prob lems in nuclear dynamics of eukaryotic cells—a new direction where hopefully Taekjip and I will have equally successful collaborations in the future.”

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Biophysicist in Profile

Officers President

Gail Robertson President-Elect Taekjip Ha Past-President Frances Separovic Secretary Erin Sheets Treasurer Samantha Harris Council Patricia Bassereau Henry Colecraft Erin C. Dueber Martin Gruebele Gilad Haran Kumiko Hayashi Syma Khalid Francesca Marassi Susan Marqusee Carolyn A. Moores

In August 2015, Ha started a position as Bloomberg Distinguished Professor of Biophysics & Biophysical Chemistry at Johns Hopkins University. His colleague at Johns Hopkins, Sarah Wood son , first met Ha during his second postdoc, when he interviewed for a junior faculty position in her department. “I really wanted to hire him—it was obvious he was brilliant and going to be very successful. Unfortunately, we could not hire him at that time, but we were able to hire both he and his wife Sua Myong later,” she reports. “I have really enjoyed hav ing TJ as a colleague.” Woodson and Ha began collaborating during Ha’s time at UIUC, first on a project to un derstand how ribosomal protein S4 recog nizes its binding site in the ribosomal RNA, using the single-molecule FRET approaches worked out in his lab. “The collaboration was suggested by Zan Luthey-Schulten, who had been doing computer simulations of S4-rRNA interactions. I was thrilled by this opportuni ty, because my group had been performing a number of biochemical studies of S4 bind ing, and we knew that the protein S4-RNA recognition process was very complicated. TJ’s single-molecule methods were clearly one of the best ways to sort out this complexity,” Woodson states. “Although this project was technically challenging, it returned a direct view of the kinetic path of binding, showing

how protein S4 reshaped the RNA motions.” Those results were published in Nature in 2014. They next collaborated to develop a meth od for vectorial RNA folding, using a “super helicase” designed in Ha’s lab. “This method mimics the 5’ to 3’ direction of RNA folding during transcription. The results unexpect edly showed that the first attempt at 5’ to 3’ folding was actually more likely to go wrong than subsequent attempts,” she adds. “This unexpected result helped us understand some later findings that RNAs do not necessari ly fold correctly immediately after they are transcribed by RNA polymerase. Sometimes it takes a long time for a newly made RNA to achieve its proper 3D shape.” As incoming president of the Biophysical Society, Ha looks forward to giving back to the biophysics community in his new role. “What makes the Biophysical Society great is its members. Our members define what biophysics is by their action, by unlocking fundamental answers in biology using quan titative methods,” he declares. “We witnessed biophysicists rising to the challenge of the pandemic. The value of rigorous science and scientific methods to humanity has rarely been as self-evident as in the last few years. The Biophysical Society’s role is to help its members to become heroes of their own scientific endeavors.”

Kandice Tanner Valeria Vasquez Biophysical Journal Vasanthi Jayaraman Editor-in-Chief The Biophysicist Sam Safran Editor-in-Chief Biophysical Reports

Jörg Enderlein Editor-in-Chief

Society Office Jennifer Pesanelli Executive Officer Newsletter

Executive Editor Jennifer Pesanelli Managing Editor John Long Production Ray Wolfe Proofreader/Copy Editor The Biophysical Society Newsletter (ISSN 0006-3495) is published eleven times per year, January-December, by the Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Distributed to USA members and other countries at no cost. Cana dian GST No. 898477062. Postmaster: Send address changes to Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, MD 20852. Copyright © 2023 by the Biophysical Society. Darren Early Laura Phelan

Nominate yourself or a colleague for a 2024 Society Award Open until May 1, 2023 For the first time, BPS Society Awards are open to self-nominations. Nominate yourself or a deserving colleague for one of the 10 Society Awards by May 1, 2023. To ensure a diverse candidate pool, we particularly encourage nominations of women, international members, and those fromunderrepresented groups. Join us Sunday, February 19, from1:00 PM-2:30 PM at the Annual Meeting in San Diego for a workshop on how to write great nomination and support letters. Learnmore by visiting our website: biophysics.org/awards-funding/society-awards.

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

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Public Affairs

Postdocs Ratify Deal with University of California Postdoctoral researchers and non–tenure-track staff scientists in the University of California system ended their nearly month long strike on December 9 after voting to ratify new contracts. The terms guarantee that postdocs’ minimum salary will rise to $71,490 by October 2026. The pact also improves benefits such as family leave and childcare subsidies. Staff scientists would receive raises of up to 4.5% each year over the contract’s five-year term.

UC Graduate Students Follow Suit and Ratify Labor Agreement At the end of December, just over six weeks into a strike that disrupted University of California (UC) campuses, the unions representing graduate student teaching assistants and researchers ratified an agreement with university administra tors. The deal provides graduate students a minimum stipend of $34,000 by October 2024—a raise of $13,000 for some students but a far cry from the $54,000 the union was asking for at the outset of the strike. The agreement also includes other benefits such as fee waivers, childcare reimbursements for student parents, eight weeks of family leave, and transit passes. Teaching assistants and other academic workers at UC Merced, UC Santa Cruz, and UC Santa Barbara overwhelm ingly rejected the proposed contract, while majorities at the UC system’s other campuses voted to approve it. Opponents contend the wage gains offered under the contract were insufficient to address the burdensome housing costs that workers contend with in order to live near a UC campus. They also strongly opposed a provision in the agreement that offered higher wages to academic student employees at UC Berkeley, UC San Francisco, and UCLA, compared with those offered for the employees at other campuses. The union will be well positioned to keep pushing for additional improve ments when it comes time to renegotiate in a couple of years.

Congress Closes 2022 with a Budget and Starts 2023 with Disorder in the House On December 29, President Joe Biden signed the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023 (H.R. 2617) into law, which includes $1.7 trillion in fiscal year 2023 (FY23) discretionary govern ment funding for all 12 annual spending bills. The omnibus bill provides a total of $47.5 billion for the National Institutes of Health, an increase of $2.5 billion (5.6%) above the FY22 enacted level. The National Science Foundation received a total of $9.9 billion, an increase of $1.0 billion (12%) above FY22, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) received $1.5 billion, a $500 million increase over 2022 spending levels. Following the November elections in which the Republicans narrowly reclaimed the majority in the House of Represen tatives, the path ahead was always going to be contentious between the House and the Democratically controlled Senate and White House. However, no one was prepared for the spectacle to come in January over what is normally a pro-for ma vote for the Speaker’s gavel. Upending a century of prec edent, it took no fewer than 15 votes to elect Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). The House then passed an extensive rules package, which will govern the decorum and operations of the House for the next two years. While negotiations for vote support are common, McCarthy made unprecedented concessions to become Speaker of the House. Most notably, promises were made to cut FY24 spending levels, with House GOP leadership agreeing to keep

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Public Affairs

FY24 government funding at the FY22 level of $1.5 trillion, which is a notable cut from the $1.7 trillion appropriated for FY23. While House Republicans have not specified top line defense and non-defense numbers, many have suggested that defense cuts were less likely, placing significantly more pressure on non-defense spending. There is also a provision calling for an automatic continuing resolution if the Senate does not vote on its own bills by October 1 in what Repub licans call a push for regular order. Senate Democrats have made clear the proposed FY24 spending level cuts will be a non-starter. This very public fracture within the Republican party, coupled with the significant power concessions, leaves now-Speaker McCarthy wielding a gavel without much power to align the Republican conference and only the smallest margin of votes—four—that he can afford to lose in any contentious vote.

The funding crunch is falling hardest on graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. As a result, jobs for students and postdocs are increasingly scarce, and those who receive scholarships or fellowships from the funding councils are no better off, as the value of those awards has remained flat for the past 20 years.

Kharkiv’s Science Community Spotlights Ukrainian Resilience

No one needs to be reminded that Russia invaded Ukraine nearly a year ago. The war has killed or injured at least 17,000 civilians, including scientists and students, and displaced more than 14 million Ukrainians. More than 1,300 Ukrainian scientists—primarily women and men older than 60—have fled, finding refuge in labs in other countries, and tens of thousands of students are studying abroad. Kharkiv, known as “the crown jewel of Ukrainian science,” has suffered devastating damage from relentless Russian bombings. In addition to Kharkiv Institute of Physics and Technology, the Kharkiv region hosts nine other institutes of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, as well as 65 universities and colleges. In September, Ukraine’s army recap tured nearly the entire Kharkiv region, putting it out of reach of artillery fire, and now academic centers here are buzzing with activity as staff begin the long road of repairs. Lab work and online classes have resumed, even amid blackouts and scant heating caused by Russian bombardment of the coun try’s energy infrastructure. The resilience has energized efforts to staunch Ukraine’s brain drain. Over the summer, the European Union launched a €25 million program, led by the Alexander von Humboldt Foun dation, to place Ukrainian graduate students and postdocs in European labs with the expectation that they will return home when conditions allow. Other countries are also lending support to scientists forced to leave Ukraine.

Around theWorld Canadian Scientists Struggle with FundingWoes

Scientific researchers attending Canada’s major annual science policy conference in December were elated when science minister François-Philippe Champagne announced the government would be awarding C$1 billion to research proj ects. That elation was short lived, however, when it became clear the funding announced referred to existing, not new funds. In recent years, the nation’s spending on research has not kept pace with inflation, and instead shrank slightly as a pro portion of gross domestic product between 1999 and 2019— making Canada the only country among the Group of Seven advanced economies to see such a decline. A large, multiyear boost in funding that began in 2018 has run its course, and budgets at the federal government’s three main funding councils remained flat this year.

The Biophysical Society is grateful to its Industry Partners.

For Industry Partner Membership information, contact alevine@biophysics.org. SILVER GOLD

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Publications

Editor’s Pick Biophysical Reports Single-photon smFRET. I: Theory and conceptual basis Ayush Saurabh, Mohamadreza Fazel, Matthew Safar, Ioannis Sgouralis, Steve Pressé “smFRET is a widely used

Know the Editor Melanie Cocco

University of California, Irvine Associate Editor Biophysical Reports

Melanie Cocco

Figure 5: Learned bivariate posterior for the system state escape rate FRET efficien ies ε FRET given synthetic data. To produce this plot, w synthetic data generated using an excitation rate of λ ex = 10 ms − 1 , and escape ra & 2 ms − 1 and FRET efficiencies of 0.09 & 0.29 for the two system states, respec ground truth is shown with red dots. The FRET efficiencies estimated by o are 0 . 288 +0 . 007 − 0 . 006 and 0 . 092 +0 . 003 − 0 . 003 . Furthermore, predicted escape rates are 2 . 03 +0 . 1 − 0 . 1 0 . 98 +0 . 10 − 0 . 07 ms − 1 . The s all bias away from the ground truth is due to the finiten We have smoothed the distributions, for illustrative purposes only, using ker estimation (KDE) available through the Julia Plots package.

technique for studying kinetics of molecular complexes. However, until now, smFRET data analysis methods have required specifying a priori the dimensionality of the underly ing physical model (the exact number of kinetic parameters). Such approaches are inherently limiting given the typically unknown number of physical configurations a molecular com plex may assume. The methods presented here eliminate this requirement and allow estimating the physical model itself along with kinetic parameters, while incorporating all sources of noise in the data.” s = Kλ ex λ probe M σ ,

What are you currently working on that excites you? I have a collaboration with a pharmaceutical company to study the mechanism of action for a new class of drugs to treat sickle cell disease by binding hemoglobin and preventing fiber formation. This drug has been described as life-changing for individuals with this painful and damaging condition. Crys tallography has shown that the protein structure does not change substantially upon drug binding, leaving many ques tions about how the drug influences the protein in solution. Our industry-sponsored project will use NMR spectroscopy and other biophysical techniques to understand the effect of drug binding on protein stability and dynamics. What has been your biggest “aha” moment in science? My lab determined the structure of the Neurite Outgrowth Inhibitor (NOGO) protein. The extracellular part of this protein is active so we chose to work on that fragment. I asked my student, Jessica Schulz , to perform a measurement of residual dipolar couplings (RDCs) to enhance the structural informa tion we had on this system. The RDC experiment uses lipid bicelles in a liquid crystal form. A few weeks later, I asked Jessica about the results and she told me that the experi ment did not work since all of the protein signals disappeared every time she added the lipid bicelles. Although she inter preted this as a failure, I was very excited since it indicated that the protein could be binding to the lipid bilayer, even in the absence of the two flanking transmembrane helices. We confirmed that NOGO does associate strongly with mem branes even though it does not have a canonical lipid-binding motif. In this case, lipid interactions drive the structure of the protein to form.

budg t needed t accurat ly stimate th transition rates in e model as

where K is the total number of photons in a single photon smFRET trace (photo λ ex is the excitation rate, λ probe represents the escape rate (timescale) that we wan and M σ is the number of system states. The parameters in the numerator control of data available and the temporal resolution. On the other hand, the parame denominator are the properties of the system under investigation and represent t resolution. From experimentation, we have found a photon budget index of approxima be a safe lower threshold for keeping errors below 15% (this error cutoff is a u in parameter estimates. In the simple parametric example above, we have K = λ ex = 10 ms − 1 , and the fastest transition that we want to probe is λ probe = 2 M σ = 2 , which corresponds to a photon budget index of 1 . 08 × 10 7 . In Fig. demonstrate the reduction in errors (confidence interval size) for parameters o system as the photon budget is increased from 12500 photons to 400000 photon of those cases, we used 9000 MCMC samples to compute statistical metrics such a 49

Version of Record Published December 1, 2022 DOI: https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.bpr.2022.100089

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Career Development

The30-SecondCompellingElevator Pitch for Scientists When I was in the job market, I made sure I attended conferences where I got to meet experts and network. This would provide me much-needed visibility for a trainee, and I would talk about the exciting research I was doing. My mentor introduced me to experts in the field during social events and that was my chance to shine and talk about my work. But I realized I was taking too attention. Your speech should give them a reason to think you will bring in new ideas and skills and that they’d like to learn more in a second meeting. In my experience, the lay crowd is impressed by a different pitch. This pitch should be more on the application of your work. The listener might not understand your science, but they can relate to an emotional or financial problem. For example, many families include someone with heart disease, and the only therapy for heart disease may be a device im plant, which is expensive. In this situation, your pitch should include: 1) the big picture of the problem, 2) what amazing therapy you have designed or what your research will contrib ute, and 3) clinical implications. This pitch does not hammer the details of your research, but it highlights the importance of your work. Offer a vivid example, like “have you heard of disease X? It affects 200,000 children every year in the United States alone. I identified a protein that causes the disease.

much time to introduce my work. The attention span during these events is very short, so I needed to come up with a 30-second pitch that described my interests, goals, and nov elty of my research with different degrees of detail. I needed an elevator pitch! A skillfully crafted pitch effectively communicates your unique value and highlights the critical questions you are asking, and you don’t have to rush for an appropriate response to fill pauses. It is designed to produce a favorable first impression on the audience. Most elevator rides last less than a minute. As a result, the pitches should last no longer than 30 seconds and should be comprised of approximately 80–90 words or three to five sentences. You are not alone if you think that your research is too complex to explain in such a short period, and you’d be right! Remember that an elevator pitch aims to pique your lis tener’s interest in learning more about your work by agreeing to a second meeting with you. So, how do you best make use of your 30 seconds? For an expert audience, your elevator pitch can quickly leap into the critical question. We do not need to introduce heart failure or cancer to experts. Here, the pitch should include: 1) the big question, 2) the novel idea solution you are proposing, and 3) the impact of your work in the field. Remember that being able to do many experiments does not necessarily make you an amazing scientist. Identifying a big critical question does! Highlight the question you have identified. It will grab their

Because of my work, we can now develop therapies by targeting Y and this will save the lives of children.” Finally, take your time writing down your elevator pitch, prac tice it, and try to use as little scientific terminology as possi ble. Here is a checklist that I made after researching elevator pitches: 1. Write down everything you want to say. 2. Cut the scientific jargon and details. Use strong, short, and powerful sentences. Eliminate unnecessary words. 3. Be mindful of the flow—how your previous sentence connects to the next one. 4. Memorize and practice . 5. Address why your audience should be interested in you. 6. Create different versions for different audiences.

Good luck creating an elevator pitch of your own! — Molly Cule

Numbers By the

There have been 92 BPS Networking Events hosted around the world since the program began in 2011.

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Annual Meeting

KnowBefore You Go Badge Pick-Up

Thank you to our sponsors: AIP Publishing axiVEND Bruker

Look for your registration confirmation with QR code by email on February 9. Print this confirmation and bring it with you to speed up the process of picking up your badge and meeting materials. Badge Pick-Up Hours Friday, February 17 3:00 pm –5:00 pm Saturday, February 18 7:30 am –6:30 pm Sunday, February 19 – Tuesday, February 21 7:30 am –5:00 pm Housing Confirmation Everyone who booked their hotel reservations through the official BPS housing bureau, Convention Housing Partners (CHP), should have received your confirmation via email. If you have not received your confirmation, please contact the housing bureau toll-free at 1-800 274-9481. Outside the United States, please call 1-415-813-6088 and select option 4. Plan, Sync, Connect with theMobile App and Desktop Planner

Burroughs Wellcome Fund Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC Chroma Technology Delmic Elements srl Fluidic Analytics Fluxion Biosciences HORIBA Scientific Journal of General Physiology (JGP) Leica Microsystems LUMICKS Mad City Labs Inc Nanion Technologies Nanosurf Oroboros Instruments GmbH Oxford Instruments PicoQuant Photonics North America Inc Physics Today RWD Life Science Sophion Bioscience A/S Sutter Instrument

Visit biophysics.org/2023meeting for more information on the Biophysical Society Events Desktop Planner and Events App. Search keyword “BPS Events” in the app stores below.

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Annual Meeting

Undergraduate Student Lounge Need a quiet place to unwind and relax or catch up on coursework while at the Annual Meeting? Visit the Undergraduate Student Lounge in Room 13 of the San Diego Convention Center.

Art of Science Image Contest Images from the 10 finalists will be on display in the Exhibit Hall. Remember to stop by and vote for your two favorite images. Voting will be open until 2:30 pm on Tuesday, February 21. Ballots will be distributed with your badge at badge pick-up.

Attending the Annual Meeting? Our volunteers make it possible! Their impact is immeasurable and has a profound effect on science communities around the world. Ask one of our volunteers wearing this button about how you can get involved with BPS. If you are not attending the Annual Meeting but would like to get involved with BPS, please visit www.biophysics.org/ get-involved to learn about all of the opportunities to make a difference.

Don’t forget to purchase an Annual Meeting t-shirt as well as other Society merchandise at the Society Booth located in Lobby BC of the San Diego Convention Center.

Plan your Exhibit Hall Experience Before Arriving in San Diego View the 2023 exhibiting companies at https:/ tinyurl.com/ f6xxe8vn and make sure to participate in the Passport Competition activity to win a Samsung Galaxy Tablet!

Share Your Research Promote your science! Grab a button and wear it throughout the Annual Meeting and during Biophysics Week to encourage others to ask you about your research. These conversation starters can help you share your research and make connec tions.

biophysics.org/ 2023meeting

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Career Development

BPS Career Center offers job seekers the tools needed to quickly find and apply for top biophysics jobs available only through the Society.

• POST a CV or an anonymous career profile that leads employers to you • SEARCH and apply to hundreds of biophysics jobs using robust filters • SET UP job alerts that deliver the latest jobs right to your inbox Connecting you to top biophysics jobs!

• ASK the experts your career questions • RECEIVE a free evaluation of your CV

1. Visit https://biophysics-jobs.careerwebsite.com. 2. On the career center homepage, under the Job Seeker section, select “ My Account ”. 3. Log in or create an account by clicking “ Create an Account ” option. 4. Enter all required information to complete your profile. 5. Return to BPS Career Center by clicking the link “ BPS Career Center Home” on the left navigation. Monitor job application activity, check for alerts and messages, or update your CV for employers and recruiters to view. Your CV is more valuable when it’s current and complete. Creating your job seeker account:

12 Contact BPS Career Center customer service department at (727) 497-6565 or email clientserv@communitybrands.com for more information. February 2023

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Communities

Nelli Mnatsakanyan Committee for Professional Opportunities for Women (CPOW)

Nelli Mnatsakanyan

Is this your first volunteer position for BPS? If not, what other positions have you held? I am currently a member of the Committee for Professional Opportunities for Women (CPOW), and in the past I held other volunteering positions at BPS: I served as the Executive Council member on the Bioenergetics, Mitochondria, and Metabolism BPS Subgroup, acting as the Subgroup program co-chair in 2017, and I am currently the co-chair-elect of the same Subgroup for the upcoming Annual Meeting in 2024. I also served as a Travel Award judge for BPS. Why do you volunteer? Although individualism and independence are important factors, so much more can be accomplished through team work within our scientific communities. BPS has created dif ferent platforms over the years to foster the development of professional communities and to promote the advancement of women and minorities in biophysics, and I am fortunate to have the opportunity to be part of it. Subgroups Biopolymers in Vivo We are looking forward to seeing you for a stimulating program at the 2023 Biopolymers in Vivo (BIV) Symposium, to be held on the first day of the 2023 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, Saturday, February 18 from8:30 AM to 12:30 PM in San Diego. The Symposium is titled Combining experiments, simulation, and theory for studying biopolymers in vivo , and details about the talks and times can be found at https:/www.biophys ics.org/2023meeting/program/subgroup-saturday. Also, don’t forget to book your place for the 2023 Subgroup dinner, which will be held at the Garage Kitchen & Bar at 6:30 PMon Subgroup Saturday, February 18. It will be a mixer format with drinks and appetizers to promote multivalent interactions, with a cost of $30 for students and $60 for others. We encourage all BIVers to regis ter for the dinner by logging into the BPS website, clicking on the shopping cart at top right, and selecting “Subgroups and dinners” from the menu. We hope to see you in San Diego! — Robert Best , Chair-Elect

What has been a highlight from your volunteer experience? I especially enjoyed organizing the Subgroup symposia for the Annual Meeting. It was an exceptional opportunity to bring together stellar scientists in the field to foster collaborations, networking, and advancement in science. Do you have advice for others who might be thinking about volunteering? I encourage everyone to take advantage of volunteering op portunities. It allows one to acquire a new insider view of the Society, to network with other members, and to have one’s voice heard within the community in general. When not volunteering for BPS, what do you work on? I am a biophysicist studying the molecular mechanisms of neurodegeneration, and the main goal of my laboratory is to investigate the structure, function, and regulation of mito chondrial ion channels with a focus on ATP synthase. I enjoy training the younger generation of scientists and hope to inspire them to join and stay in this fascinating field of bio physics. Mechanobiology The Mechanobiology Subgroup is pleased to announce that Alba Diz-Munoz , research group leader at EMBL’s Cell Biology and Bio physics Unit in Heidelberg, Germany, has been selected to receive the 2022 Early Career Award inMechanobiology. This award is offered each year by the Mechanobiology Subgroup and recogniz es an early career individual who has made significant advances inmechanobiology. Diz-Munoz will present her research at the 2023 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Diego. Please joinme in congratulating her on this honor. — Deborah Leckband , Past Chair Membrane Structure and Function The Membrane Structure and Function (MSAF) Subgroup is pleased to announce Rumiana Dimova as the winner of the 2023 Thomas E. Thompson Award. Dimova receives the award for her excellent and extensive work onmembrane rigidity and tension, membrane curvature, andmembranes in electric fields. We wel come you to the award lecture at 4:45 PMon Saturday, February 18, during the MSAF Subgroup symposium at the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in San Diego. — Ingela Parmryd , Chair

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Member Corner

Members in the News

Sean Decatur , Kenyon College and Society member since 1993, has been named as the next director of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, beginning in April 2023. Katsumi Matsuzaki , Kyoto University and Society member since 1993, received the Japanese Peptide Society Award for his study on “Mechanisms by which lipids shape and functionalize peptides and proteins.”

Sean Decatur

Katsumi Matsuzaki

Grants & Opportunities Wellcome Discovery Awards This opportunity provides funding for established re searchers and teams from any discipline who want to pursue bold and creative research ideas to deliver signif icant shifts in understanding that could improve human life, health, and well-being. Who can apply: Lead applicant’s host organization must be based in the United Kingdom, Republic of Ireland, or a low- or lower-middle income country (excluding India and mainland China). Deadline: April 11, 2023 Website: https:/wellcome.org/grant-funding/schemes/ discovery-awards

Elsa U. Pardee Foundation Grants This foundation funds research directed toward identi fying new treatments or cures for cancer. Projects are funded for a one-year period, which will allow for the es tablishment of capabilities for new cancer researchers or new cancer approaches by established cancer research ers. Project relevance to cancer detection, treatment, or cure should be clearly identified. Who can apply: Investigators at United States non-profit institutions. Deadline: April 30, 2023 Website: https:/pardeefoundation.org/how-to-apply/

Student Spotlight

Yang Zheng Biomedical Engineering Department Case Western Reserve University What skill have you learned in your studies that you find useful in other aspects of your life? Frommy studies I learned the skill to objectively and clearly explainmy findings and opinions tomy colleagues and advisors, and I found it extremely useful in communicating withmy family in daily life.

Yang Zheng

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