Biophysical Society Bulletin | January 2021

Public Affairs

Biden Transition Brings Questions. Will Answers Follow?  

At the time of writing, we are beginning to see the early stages of the Biden Administration transition. The elections left a few unanswered questions, such as how long would we wait for certified results and legal fights, and of course, control of the Sen- ate. While we wait for the January 5 runoff elections in Georgia, more seats in the House and Senate could move back into play as a result of the Biden transition. Although only a handful of names have been announced so far, a number of sitting House and Senate members are prime targets for posts within the Administration. How quickly will the Senate confirm these positions to allow us to get to the job at hand? How quickly will the Biden Administration be able to roll back some of policies put in place over the past four years? This is by no means a new or unusual situation, but it leaves us with more questions waiting to be answered. Congress Faces Busy Lame Duck Session Around theWorld Meet the NewBPS Ambassadors

On Wednesday, December 9, the House passed a tempo- rary extension to the continuing resolution (CR) keeping the federal government funded at current levels until December 18, with the Senate expected to follow suit. Standing in the way of the fiscal year (FY) 2021 budget is a wide difference in vision on overall spending. Republicans believe in a more spe- cific approach, with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell making it clear his Republican majority would be comfortable with a stimulus bill in the neighborhood of $500 billion and no more than $1 trillion. Democratic leaders, however, have made it clear that they want something closer to $2 trillion. As part of the FY21 negotiations, the House and Senate have been able to advance discussions on another, much needed, stimulus package. Leadership from both chambers are hope- ful they can agree on a combined stimulus package in one of the largest workloads for a Lame Duck session in recent memory Also on the agenda? Congress has to finish the National Defense Authorization Act, a massive bipartisan bill that sets defense policy for the country. It is currently in limbo be- cause of veto threat by President Trump. Hopefully, Congress will use the time remaining to take action and complete the much-needed work of the 116th Congress.

In January of 2020, the Biophysical Society launched the inaugural class of the BPS Ambassador Program. Members from around the globe are selected to represent biophysics, scientific research, and information in their home countries for a three-year term. Joining Ambassadors John Baenzinger of Canada, Olwyn Byron of the United Kingdom, Nuno Santos of Portugal and Samrat Mukhopadhyay of India are BPS members from Argentina, Malaysia, Norway and Turkey. Canan Atilgan Turkey What do you do professionally?

I am a professor at Sabanci University and an elected member of the Science Academy, Istanbul. We develop efficient computation-

Canan Atilgan

al methods for navigating protein landscapes; we strive to advance the understanding on long-range communication in molecular machines. Locally, I advocate for science communi- cation by serving on the editorial board of the Turkish lan- guage popular science website sarkac.org, and by making

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