Biophysical Society Bulletin | July-August 2022

July-August 2022

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ArdemPatapoutian, Recipient of the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, Named 2023 BPS Lecturer Ardem Patapoutian , of Scripps Research/Howard Hughes Medical Institute, is a molecular biologist specializing in sensory transduction. His research has led to the identification of novel ion channels and receptors activated by temperature, mechanical force, and increased cell volume. His laboratory has shown that these ion channels play crucial roles in sensing temperature, touch, proprioception, and pain and in regulating vascular tone. Patapoutian was born in Lebanon in 1967 and attended the American University of Beirut for one year before he immigrated to the United States in 1986 and became a US citizen. He graduated from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1990 and received his PhD at the California Institute of Technology in the lab of Barbara Wold in 1996. After postdoctoral work with Lou Reichardt at the University of California, San Francisco, he joined the faculty of Scripps Research in 2000, where he is currently a Professor in the Department of Neuroscience. He also held a position at the Genomics Institute of The Novartis Research Foundation from 2000 to 2014. Patapoutian was award ed the Young Investigator Award from the Society for Neuroscience in 2006 and was named an Investigator of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute in 2014. He is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (2016), a member of the National Academy of Sciences (2017), and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2020). He is a corecipient of the 2017 Alden Spencer Award from Columbia University (with David Ginty ), as well as the 2019 Rosenstiel Award for Distinguished Work in Ba sic Medical Research, the 2020 Kavli Prize in Neuroscience, the 2021 BBVA Foundation Frontiers of Knowledge Award, and the 2021 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (all shared with David Julius ). Patapoutian’s lecture “How Do You Feel? The Molecules that Sense Touch” will take place on Monday, February 20, 2023. Ardem Patapoutian

2022 BPS Elections NowOpen Voting is open June 1 through August 1

www.biophysics.org/election

Inside

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14 16 17 18 20

Council Update

Communities

Stay Connected with BPS

Biophysicist in Profile

Career Development Member Corner Thematic Meeting Important Dates

Public Affairs Publications Annual Meeting

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Council Update

Planning for the Future In June 2017, BPS Council convened in Charlottesville, VA, home of then-BPS-President Lukas Tamm , to create the Society’s first formal strategic plan. Sharing Knowledge in and about Biophysics, Fostering a Global Community, Supporting the Next Generation, and Advocating for Biophysics emerged as the strategic priorities. Scientific excellence; integrity and transparency; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and community building were the agreed upon values. That plan has been the guiding document for the majority of BPS activities for the past five years. While these priorities and values still resonate strongly for the Society, it is time to revisit, reassess, and re-envision the future for biophysics and BPS. To that end, we began a pre-strategic-planning process with a kickoff during New Council at the Annual Meeting in San Francisco in February. Shortly thereafter, we launched an all-member survey to get feedback on your priorities, levels of engagement, how you value the various programs and services provided by BPS, etc. We also surveyed Council, staff, and those who did not renew their membership for 2022. Three virtual focus groups were conducted in April and May enabling a deep dive into member priorities and anticipated trends in biophysics over the next few years. That feedback, along with a S.W.O.T. (strengths, weakness es, opportunities, and threats) and competitive analysis, informed the participants as a part of our second formal stra tegic planning session held during Spring Council in early June. Council and several senior staff gathered at the University of Madison–Wisconsin, BPS President Gail Robertson ’s home

institution, for two days of thought-provoking, challenging, and inspiring discussions. One of our first activities was to revisit the BPS mission and vision statements that were created in 2017. A mission statement is meant to describe an organization’s overall purpose and intent, while the vision statement is forward looking, inspirational, and aspirational, as to what we want to achieve. We felt that the existing statements needed some modifications to better express the purpose and aspirations of the organization in 2022 and beyond. Although not quite finalized, we look forward to sharing these with you in the coming months. Another exercise empowered Council to take stock of all that had been accomplished in support of the original plan: the initiation of the Ambassador Program, the introduction of Student Chapters, the launch of our gold open access journal Biophysical Reports , and the development of BPS Conferences, to name a few. While we are proud of the successes, we recognize that there is always more to do in support of our original strategic goals. After a establishing a solid understanding of BPS’s current state, we envisioned what biophysics and BPS could and would look like in 2030. We imagined biophysics as more interdisciplinary and integrated. We anticipated artificial intelligence and machine learning will have significant im pacts on biophysics (all science!). We envisioned information dissemination as more accessible, open, and transparent. Our thoughts about the future of our field were numerous and

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Council Update

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

exciting! In terms of BPS in 2030, we brainstormed more than 50 ideas, including challenges and opportunities for what the Society will look like and how we’ll be supporting members into the future. From here, we began to design our path to that defined future and considered what we could realistically achieve in the next few years, thinking about what outcomes we want to achieve and how we would measure success. A good strategic plan should cover a maximum of three to five years and should be reviewed annually so that, as things change, we can change too, and reprioritize or revise as needed. We accomplished a lot in Madison, but there is still work to be done. Our strategic planning consultant, Elisa Pratt , is synthesizing everything we did during those 10.5 hours of strategic discussion and will be working with the Council and senior staff to review and reconcile a final draft that encapsulates our potential, our priorities, and our plan forward. It will include performance measures, metrics, and milestones. Staff will then be tasked with extrapolating the tactics necessary to achieve our objectives by way of an implementation matrix to guide future work of staff, committees, and other volunteers. Our goal is to have this new strategic plan ready for Council to approve this fall, and we look forward to sharing it with all of you as we look forward to the next several years and leading biophysics and the Biophysical Society into the future.

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 © 2022 by the Biophysical Society. Darren Early Laura Phelan

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Biophysicist in Profile

Irep Gözen Area of Research Biomembranes and their behavior at the mesoscale

Institution University of Oslo

At-a-Glance

Ever since her undergraduate studies in environmental engineering and molecular biology and genetics, Irep Gözen has been drawn to interdisciplinary research. She was introduced to biophysics and soft matter science while earning her PhD, and it caught her interest. Her research group has several research directions linked through the concept of soft matter, including most recently the formation and development pathways of protocells at the origin of life.

Irep Gözen

Irep Gözen grew up in Istanbul, Turkey, and stayed in the city to pursue her undergraduate degree at Istanbul Technical University. She earned her bachelor’s degree with a double major in environmental engineering and molecular biology and genetics. “I had the experience of applying the scientific method for the first time during my bachelor’s thesis work, which was about waste characterization and treatment. I was routinely performing analytical experiments, looked at lots of data, wrote my lab journal, etc.,” she shares. “I moved to biophysics and soft matter science during my PhD studies and have never left it since.” She earned her PhD in Biophysical Chemistry from Chalmers University of Technology in Göteborg, Sweden. “I was intro duced to biomembranes, and the biophysical and materials science aspects of their behavior, during my PhD work,” she says. “I discovered unusual, really beautiful rupture patterns on artificial and cellular lipid membranes. It turned out they were also very interesting, similar in structure and dynamics to cracks in solid materials, all the way up to the size scale of earthquakes.” Following the completion of her PhD, Gözen started a post doctoral position at the MIT-Harvard Health Sciences and Technology Division, where she worked on cryopreservation of cells and cellular membranes. “I very much liked the science in Boston,” she explains, “and spent the following two years of my postdoc at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, where my project was about the internal dynamics of artificial cells.” Gözen is now a group leader at the University of Oslo in Nor way. “My group has a few different research directions, but all are linked through the concept of soft matter,” she shares. “Most recently my group has become interested in formation and development pathways of protocells at the origin of life. We look particularly at autonomous shape transformations of primitive cell models on various artificial and natural surfaces

—such as minerals and rocks—with early Earth relevance.” As part of this research, they have even studied extraterres trial solid surfaces, such as a meteorite specimen from Mars. Moving into the role of group leader has been the most difficult part of her career thus far. “My current position has certainly been the most challenging. I started with the ideal istic idea that having original research ideas and knowing how to address them would be the key to success as a principal investigator. I found out quickly that this is only one of the many essential components,” Gözen reveals. “Setting up a laboratory from scratch, hiring team members, training them on experimental methods, continuously fundraising, teaching and other service for the faculty, and lots of other things. It was intense to handle these alone in the beginning; things got easier after I had assembled my team.” Gözen emphasizes the extent to which technological devel opments have a strong influence on the development of new areas of biophysical research. “The development of micro- and nanofabrication technologies definitely had an impact on my research,” she explains. “For the immediate future I will continue to employ them and make and manipulate interfaces with atomic precision to learn more about membrane behav ior, particularly in the context of the origin of life. Surfaces were abundant on the early Earth, and there is increasing ev idence that they may have contributed to the transition from the non-living to the living world.” The breadth of biophysics has made the field a great fit for her. “It’s truly inter- and transdisciplinary. I realized early that you cannot have the full picture if you don’t look at the prob lem from the angles of biology, physics, materials science, theory, modeling, and more,” she says. “The many different instrumental techniques, often used to cope with the small scale of the things we work on, add a good share of engi neering and technology. This is challenging at times, but it is inspiring, rewarding, and a lot of fun.”

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Biophysicist in Profile

While her research itself is rewarding, so is the response to it. “I feel quite accomplished when I receive emails with comments on my work from people I have never met before. These can be colleagues from the other side of the world, who share my excitement on the findings of a paper which just got published, or people outside the scientific communi ty who want to make our findings known to the public,” she shares. “It is nice to see that the work reaches beyond our circles.” In a move that satisfied both this desire to engage with the wider community and Gözen’s long-standing interest in visual arts, her group recently organized a contemporary art exhibit at a prominent gallery in downtown Oslo. “We themed it ‘NanoCosmos,’ and showed striking microscopy images of soft materials, mainly molecular film structures and patterns. We were involved in the whole process of setting up the exhi bition; it was an amazing experience. We are bound to do this again,” she reports. Biophysical Society meetings have been a helpful venue to connect with researchers she might not otherwise meet. “The Annual Meetings are for me an absolute highlight. I have hardly missed a meeting for more than 10 years now, ever since I was a PhD student,” she says. “They have had a sig nificant impact in shaping my career. Throughout the years I met a lot of amazing researchers from all over the world who also regularly attend the meeting, some of whom became my collaborators and friends.” Asked what advice she might offer to those just starting out in biophysics careers, Gözen responds, “I think not being afraid to get out of my comfort zone, being open to learning new methods, and talking to a lot of people about research in a broader context helped me a lot and I highly recommend this approach. Biophysics is not straightforward, but attacking problems from different angles and solving pieces of a puzzle together with other researchers who have different views and backgrounds makes the challenging journey quite worth while.”

Gözen holding a petri dish containing a rare meteorite specimen fromMars.

Profiles in Biophysics No two biophysicists have the same story. Read about the many paths that led each of them to become a biophysicist. www.biophysics.org/profiles-in-biophysics

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Public Affairs

Rally for Medical Research Biophysical Society members in the United States are invited to join us in Washington, DC on September 13–14 to call for medical research funding! Registration is now open for the annual Rally for Medical Research (https:/www.biophysics.org/ policy-advocacy/take-action) fly-in, where you will meet with your elected officials and advocate on behalf of making National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding a national priority. This event, established in 2013, includes more than 300 national organiza tions coming together with a focused message on increasing NIH funding and raising awareness about the research it sup ports. Please email Leann Fox at lfox@biophysics.org to learn more and visit www.biophysics.org/policy-advocacy/take-action to register for the event.

AdamH. Russell Named Acting Deputy Director of ARPA-H On May 25, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra announced the formal establishment of the Advanced Research Project Agency for Health (ARPA-H) as an indepen dent entity within the National Institutes of Health, as well as the appointment of Adam H. Russell as Acting Deputy Director. Currently, Russell is the Chief Scientist at the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security (ARLIS). He spent more than a decade as a Program Manager, first at the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) and then at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). HouseMembers Introduce Bipartisan STEMDiversity Bill Representatives Alma Adams (R-NC-12), Terri Sewell (R-AL 07), Mike Turner (R-OH-10), and Brian Fitzpatrick (R-PA-01) have introduced the “Supporting Diverse STEM Students Act” (HR 7313). The bill seeks to update the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program (MSEIP) to support insti tutions that predominantly serve minority students in their capacity to provide direct scholarships and comprehensive

wraparound services for their STEM student success. These services include guidance counseling and academic advising, work-study and work-based learning opportunities, faculty and peer mentorship, summer bridge programs, undergrad uate research opportunities, and individualized academic support and tutoring. A similar bill, the “Supporting Minority STEM Student to Career Act,” was introduced in the 116th Congress (2019-2020) but failed to progress. Future of Neutron Science in the United States Due to National Institute of Standards and Technology Center for Neutron Research (NCNR) nuclear reactor failure and planned upgrades of the Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) neutron scattering facilities, availability of neutrons for research in the United States, including biophysical studies, will be limited until 2029. This dearth of neutrons has prompted two neutron scat terers, Jaroslaw (Jarek) Majewski of the University of NewMexico, Albuquerque and Adrian Brügger of Columbia University, to re quest to the Department of Energy that the partially dormant Los Alamos National Laboratory’s (LANL’s) Lujan Center be re-opened to general users. We are asking members of the Biophysical Society whomay be impacted by limited neutron availability to please send a one-page letter of support to Brügger at brugger@ civil.columbia.edu.

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Public Affairs

Around theWorld Canada Announces New Innovation Agency

Norwegian Science Funding Threatened In early May, the Norwegian Ministry of Education and Research announced the firing of the Norwegian Research Council board and replaced it with a temporary one. The move, designed to address a “serious financial situation,” is leaving Norwegian researchers facing dramatic cuts to their budgets. Government reports found the Council violated the rules on managing public finances—specifically noting that funds should be spent in the year allocated. Reports show the Council had combined funding streams from different govern ment ministries and spread the money across years and proj ects. It also built up a funding reserve intended for delayed projects. The research council is facing a shortfall of as much as 2.9 billion kroner ($300 million), approximately one-third of its annual budget, by the end of 2024. At a meeting of the new board, proposed funding cuts include a 20% reduction to current grants, cancellation of the council’s main basic research funding program in 2024, and the post ponement of research infrastructure projects. Additionally, these proposed cuts would also impact funding awards from the European Union’s Horizon Europe program. Council funds have been relied upon to top up Horizon grants to adjust for the higher costs in Norway. Discussions between university leaders and the research council are ongoing, but there are no current plans for the government to cancel any grants outright.

The Canadian government has announced that it will invest Can$1 billion (about US$780 million) over the next five years to create a funding agency focused on innovation in science and technology. The new agency goes against the trend of countries trying to replicate the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA); instead, it will be mod elled on innovation agencies in Finland and Israel. The initial funding level puts the agency roughly on the same scale as the United Kingdom’s new Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), which is modelled on DARPA. Canada lags behind its peers, ranking last in the G7 group of wealthy nations in terms of business spending on research and development (R&D). Canadian businesses invest just 0.8% of the country’s gross domestic product in R&D, compared with the G7 average of 1.6%. The announcement of the new agency coincides with Canada entering the negotiations phase to join Horizon Europe. Can ada entered discussions to join the European Union funding program back in June 2021. Horizon Europe believes Canada could be associated with the program as early as 2023. If agreed, the Canadian association could provide a much-needed new source of funding to Canadian researchers.

Applications Are Open for the Biophysical Society 2022–2023 Congressional Fellowship Interested in using your science skills to inform science policy? Does spending a year working on Capitol Hill in Wash ington, DC helping to develop policy sound exciting? The Biophysical Society’s Congressional Fellowship program is your opportunity to participate directly in the process of law-making that impacts how research is funded and regulated. This year-long opportunity provides fellows a chance to use their science knowledge to inform the public policy process. Fellows will gain firsthand knowledge and experience on how Congress works, and participate in the esteemed AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellows program (www.aaas.org/program/science-technology-poli cy-fellowships) that provides ongoing training and networking opportunities during the fellowship year and beyond. Visit the website (www.biophysics.org/policy-advocacy/congressional-fellowship) for more details about the program or contact Leann Fox at fellows@biophysics.org or (240) 290-5606. The application deadline is December 13, 2022.

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Publications

Know the Editor Marta Filizola

Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Editor, Channels, Transporters, and Receptors Biophysical Journal

Marta Filizola

What are you currently working on that excites you? My research program has been focusing on membrane pro teins, and particularly G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), for quite some time now. Our goal is to obtain rigorous mech anistic insights into the structure, dynamics, and function of these prominent drug targets for their use in the devel opment of improved therapeutics. To this end, my lab uses several computational structural biology tools and rational drug design approaches, ranging from molecular modeling to bioinformatics, cheminformatics, molecular dynamics (MD) simulations, enhanced sampling algorithms, free-energy per turbations, and more recently, a variety of statistical methods and artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning tools. The promise of the latter for drug discovery has recently gained much attention, and we are committed to probing AI tools in applications to membrane proteins, in close collaboration with molecular biologists, structural biologists, medicinal chemists, and experimental biophysicists, to possibly convert current media hype into validated technological advances in biomedicine. Moreover, we are excited at the prospect of further leveraging results from enhanced MD simulations and modern biophysical experimental techniques with AI technol ogy and other statistical approaches to derive dynamic and kinetic elements of GPCR signaling, particularly those of opi oid receptors, at an atomic level of detail from experimentally elusive metastable states of these proteins and their ternary complexes. How do you stay on top of all the latest developments in your field? I always thought I learned more and faster in a class or group setting, or any situation that required in-person interactions. While Biophysical Society meetings, among others, allow me to stay on top of the latest developments in my field, I am amazed by how social media have impacted my most recent learning experience, notwithstanding their lack of in-person interactions.

Editor’s Pick Biophysical Journal Crowding-induced protein destabilization in the absence of soft attractions Saman Bazmi , Stefan Wallin “The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of proteins can be drastically altered by various macromolecular crowding ef fects. Contrary to common assumption, the excluded volume effect can destabilize a protein’s native state if compact non native states with sufficiently low energies are formed during folding. Even sparsely populated nonnative states might be sufficient for crowding-induced destabilization under condi tions for which the unfolded state is relatively compact, such as low temperatures. Because the excluded volume effect is always present under crowded conditions, these results have implications also for macromolecular crowders capable of attractive interactions.” Version of Record Published June 6, 2022 DOI:https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2022.06.005 FollowBPS Journals

on Twitter @BiophysJ @BiophysReports @BiophysicistJ

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Publications

The Biophysicist Editor-in-Chief Call for Nominations The Publications Committee of the Biophysical Society (BPS) is calling for nominations for the position of Editor-in-Chief of the Society’s open access education journal, The Biophysicist . This appointment will begin in summer 2023 for one five-year term. The Biophysicist launched in 2020, under the leadership of Professor Sam Safran , Editor-in-Chief. It aims to highlight and nurture education, and its scholarship and development. The journal serves a worldwide audience to make fundamental concepts and techniques in biophysics (and related disciplines), as well as evidence-based pedagogical practice, accessible to individuals at all levels: undergraduate, graduate, and post-graduate students/trainees; active researchers; and scholars of biophysics teaching and learning. The Biophysicist is published online, with typically two to three issues per year. The journal hosts free webinars together with the BPS Education Committee. The Editor-in-Chief also organizes special issues. We are looking for the next Editor-in-Chief who can continue to lead the journal in its mission and extend its reach. The Editor-in-Chief must have a passion for biophysics education, and enthusiasm for promotion of the journal to BPS members and the broader scientific community. The Editor-in-Chief should embody the scientific standards of the Society and support its mission and bring those standards to the journal. The Publications Committee welcomes nominations (including self-nom inations) of candidates who support and are dedicated to Society Values (Scientific Excellence, Integrity and Transparency; Diversity, Equity, and In clusion; and Community Building). The Society values diversity and encour ages nominations of qualified candidates throughout our community. The full call for nominations can be found at https:/www.biophysics.org/ blog/the-biophysicist-editor-in-chief-call-for-nominations. Questions or confidential nominations should be made to the Publications Committee through the Society Office (thebiophysicist@biophysics.org). The candi date’s CV is helpful but not required for the nomination. The deadline for nominations is October 5, 2022.

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Annual Meeting

A Note from the ProgramChairs

Thank you to our sponsors: axiVEND Bruker Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC Delmic Elements srl

As co-chairs of the 2023 Biophysical Society Program Committee, we are delighted to bring to you the program for the 67th Annual Meeting of the Biophysical Society, which will be held at the San Diego Convention Center, February 18–22, 2023. This year’s program highlights some of the most exciting developments in biophysics and includes symposia and workshops on emerging topics such as “Predicting Protein Fold,” “Ion Channels on Drugs,” and “High-Throughput Single Molecule Spectroscopy.” The program truly reflects the interdisciplinary nature of biophysics and showcases the myriad of approaches and applications that have led to remarkable breakthroughs in various sub-fields. We are for tunate to have an outstanding and diverse collection of speakers who will be presenting their latest work at this meeting. In addition to the symposia and workshops, the platforms and the poster sessions provide the best opportunity for trainees and early career scientists to present and discuss their research.

Abstract Submission and Registration NowOpen Remember, to submit an abstract or register for the Annual Meeting you must have a myBPS Account. biophysics.org/2023meeting Fluxion Biosciences Harvard Bioscience HORIBA Scientific Journal of General Physiology (JGP) LUMICKS Mad City Labs Nanion Technologies Sophion Bioscience A/S

The meeting itself is an excellent forum for networking and connecting biophysicists at all levels. The Annual Meeting also includes a number of professional devel opment and educational programs especially geared towards trainees and early career scientists. We invite you join us in San Diego and highly encourage you submit an abstract for one of the sessions. We look forward to seeing you in person.

Baron Chanda Washington University in St. Louis

Janice Robertson Washington University in St. Louis

Symposia

Discover the latest advances in biophysics.

Amyloid Structure, Dynamics, and Proteostasis

Artificial Enzymes: Protein Dynamics and Directed Evolution Lynn Kamerlin , Uppsala University, Sweden, Chair Huimin Zhao , University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA Donald Hilvert , ETH Zurich, Switzerland Steven Schwartz , University of Arizona, USA Fuzzy Complexes Benjamin Schuler , University of Zurich, Switzerland, Chair Jennifer Hurley , Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, USA Katherine Stott , University of Cambridge, United Kingdom Max Staller , University of California, Berkeley, USA

Elizabeth Rhoades , University of Pennsylvania, USA, Chair David Eisenberg , University of California, Los Angeles, USA Robert Tycko , NIDDK, NIH, USA Manu Sharma , Weill Cornell Medical College, USA Viral Recognition and Entry James Munro , University of Massachusetts, USA, Chair Ekaterina Heldwein , Tufts University, USA Megan Stanifer , University of Florida, USA Juan Reguera , AFMB: Laboratoire Architecture et Fonction des Macromolécules Biologiques, France

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Annual Meeting

Ion Channels on Drugs Vera Moiseenkova-Bell , University of Pennsylvania, USA, Chair Fredrik Elinder , Linköping University, Sweden Stephen J. Tucker , University of Oxford, United Kingdom Ryan Hibbs , University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, USA Allosteric Modulation of GPCRs Arthur Christopoulos , Monash University, Australia, Chair Madan Babu , St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, USA Ron Dror , Stanford University, USA Moran Shalev-Benami , Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel Unholy Matrimony of Channels and Transporters Show-Ling Shyng , Oregon Health and Science University, USA, Chair Jianping Wu , Westlake University, China Harley Kurata , University of Alberta, Canada David Stokes , New York University, USA Bacterial Barriers Randy Stockbridge , University of Michigan, USA, Chair Gurol Suel , University of California, San Diego, USA Joanna Slusky , University of Kansas, USA Camilo Perez , University of Basel, Switzerland Mechanisms of Membrane Insertion Bil Clemons , California Institute of Technology, USA, Chair Rebecca Voorhees , California Institute of Technology, USA Eunyong Park , University of California, Berkeley, USA Ian Collinson , University of Bristol, United Kingdom Workshops Computational Modeling of Binding Thermodynamics Carol Post , Purdue University, USA, Chair Zoe Cournia , University of Athens, Greece Jay Ponder , Washington University in St. Louis, USA Siewert Marrink , University of Groningen, The Netherlands Lingle Wang , Schrodinger, Inc., USA Vibrational Tools for Biomolecular and Cellular Studies Nien-Hui Ge , University of California, Irvine, USA, Chair Wei Min , Columbia University, USA Andrei Tokmakoff , University of Chicago, USA Shen Ye , Tohoku University, Japan

Mechanotransduction Complex in Hair Cells Robert Fettiplace , University of Wisconsin–Madison, USA, Chair Marcos Sotomayor , Ohio State University, USA Pingbo Huang , Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China Angela Ballesteros Morcillo , NIH, USA 50 Years After the Fluid Mosaic Membrane Sarah Keller , University of Washington, USA, Chair Madan Rao , National Centre for Biological Sciences, India DrewMarquardt , University of Windsor, Canada Ana Garcia-Saez , University of Cologne, Germany The Molecular Sarcomere Samantha Harris , University of Arizona, USA, Chair Anna Grosberg , University of California, Irvine, USA Dylan Burnette , Vanderbilt University, USA Stefan Raunser , Max Planck Institute for Molecular Physiology, Germany Cytoskeletal Cross Talk Marileen Dogterom , Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, Chair Jessica Henty-Ridilla , SUNY Upstate Medical University, USA Michael Murrell , Yale University, USA Dana Nicole Reinemann , University of Mississippi, USA Genome Organization Elizabeth Hinde , University of Melbourne, Australia, Chair Marco Foiani , University of Milan, Italy Sua Myong , Johns Hopkins University, USA Yuichi Taniguchi , Kyoto University, Japan

The RNA World Jeffrey Chao , FriedrichMiescher Institute for Biomedical Research, Switzerland, Chair Wendy Gilbert , Yale University, USA Rhiju Das , Stanford University, USA Katja Petzold , Karolinska Institute, Sweden Proton Coupled Transport in Organelles Simon Newstead , University of Oxford, United Kingdom, Chair Joseph A. Mindell , NIH, USA Rajini Rao , Johns Hopkins University, USA Ambre Bertholet , University of California, Los Angeles, USA Optogenetics and Beyond Mikhail Shapiro , California Institute of Technology, USA, Chair Elena G. Govorunova , University of Texas Medical School, USA Emilia Entcheva , GeorgeWashington University, USA Jared Toettcher , Princeton University, USA Opportunities for Change: Setting Standards to Address Harassment in Science Renae Ryan , University of Sydney, Australia, Chair Michael Lauer , NIH, USA Theresa Good , NSF, USA Speaker to be announced Predicting Protein Fold John Moult , University of Maryland, USA, Chair Lucy Forrest , NINDS, NIH, USA Kathryn Tunyasuvunakool , DeepMind, United Kingdom Sameer Velankar , EuropeanMolecular Biology

Laboratory, United Kingdom Biophysics of Mitosis

Mary Elting , North Carolina State University, USA, Chair Meredith Betterton , University of Colorado, Boulder, USA Lillian Fritz-Laylin , University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA Dimitrios Vavylonis , Lehigh University, USA

Learn from those leading the development of emerging techniques.

High Throughput Single Molecule Spectroscopy Joseph Puglisi , Stanford University, USA, Chair Nynke Dekker , Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands Gijs Wuite , Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, The Netherlands Ilya Finkelstein , University of Texas at Austin, USA Marcel Goldschen-Ohm , University of Texas at Austin, USA

Developments in Nanopore Biosensors Giovanni Maglia , University of Groningen, The Netherlands, Chair Min Chen , University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA Jens Gundlach , University of Washington, USA

biophysics.org/ 2023meeting

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Annual Meeting

Abstract Categories The Society organizes platform and poster sessions based on scientific areas. The abstract topic categories are reviewed an nually andmodified as needed to reflect new and evolving areas in biophysics. When submitting an abstract, you will be asked to select the category in which your abstract best fits. The abstract categories for the 2023 Annual Meeting are listed below. Proteins 1A Protein Structure and Conformation 1B Protein Structure, Prediction, and Design 1C Protein Stability, Folding, and Chaperones 1D Protein-Small Molecule Interactions 1E Protein Assemblies 1F Protein Dynamics and Allostery 1G Membrane Protein Structures 1H Membrane Protein Dynamics 1I Membrane Protein Folding 1J Enzyme Function, Cofactors, and Post-Translational Modifications Intrinsically Disordered Proteins, Aggregates, and Condensates 2A Intrinsically Disordered Proteins 2B Protein Aggregates 2C Condensates: Physical Properties andModeling 2D Condensates in Physiology and Disease Nucleic Acids 3A DNA Replication, Recombination, and Repair 3B Transcription 3C Ribosomes and Translation 3D DNA Structure and Dynamics 3E RNA Structure and Dynamics 3F Protein-Nucleic Acid Interactions 3G Chromatin and the Nucleoid Lipids and Membranes 4A Membrane Physical Chemistry 4B Membrane Dynamics 4C Membrane Active Peptides 4D Membrane Fusion and Non-Bilayer Structures 4E Membrane Structure 4F Protein-Lipid Interactions: Channels 4G Protein-Lipid Interactions: Structures 4H General Protein-Lipid Interactions

Cell Physiology and Bioenergetics 5A

Membrane Receptors and Signal Transduction

5B 5C 5D 5E 5F 5G 5H

Mechanosensation

Exocytosis and Endocytosis

CalciumSignaling

Intracellular CalciumChannels and CalciumSparks andWaves Membrane Pumps, Transporters, and Exchangers

Excitation-Contraction Coupling

Cardiac, Smooth, and Skeletal Muscle Electrophysiology

5I 5J

Muscle Regulation

Intracellular Organelle Dynamics Bioenergetics and Photosynthesis Mitochondria in Cell Life and Death

5K 5L

Channels and Transporters 6A

Voltage-Gated Na Channels Voltage-Gated Ca Channels Voltage-Gated K Channels

6B 6C 6D 6E 6F 6G 6H

TRP Channels

Ligand-Gated Channels

Ion Channel Regulatory Mechanisms Ion Channels, Pharmacology, and Disease

Anion Channels

6I Other Channels Cytoskeleton, Motility, and Motors 7A

Skeletal Muscle Mechanics, Structure, and Regulation SmoothMuscle and Cardiac Muscle Mechanics and Structure SmoothMuscle and Cardiac Muscle Regulation SmoothMuscle Mechanics, Structure, and Regulation Actin Structure, Dynamics, and Associated Proteins Microtubules, Structure, Dynamics, and Associated Proteins Kinesins, Dyneins, and Other Microtubule-basedMotors Cytoskeletal Assemblies and Dynamics Cell Mechanics, Mechanosensing, andMotility Cytoskeletal-based Intracellular Transport Bacterial Mechanics, Cytoskeleton, andMotility Myosins

7B

7C 7D 7E 7F 7G 7H

7I 7J

7K 7L

Systems Biology 8A

Modeling of Biological Systems Imaging in Systems and Synthetic Biology Genetic, Metabolic, and Cellular Networks Novel Techniques for Systems and Synthetic Biology

8B 8C 8D

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Annual Meeting

Techniques To allow attendees to search for abstracts based on specific techniques in addition to areas of research, during abstract submission you will be asked to select the technique used in your research from among the list of broad topics. The technique categories for the 2023 Annual Meeting are listed here. • Analytical Ultracentrifugation • Artificial Intelligence Methods • Atomic Force Spectroscopy • Bioinformatics • Calorimetry • Cell/Tissue Imaging and Mechanics • Computational Modeling – Cells and Systems • Computational Modeling – Molecular and Macromolecular • Computational/Theoretical Chemistry and Simulations • Electron Microscopy and Tomography • Electrophysiology • Fluorescence and Light Microscopy • Magnetic Resonance (NMR, EPR, MRI) • Mass Spectrometry • Microfluidics and Microfabrication • Nanotechnology • Nuclear Magnetic Resonance/EPR Spectroscopy • Optical Spectroscopy (CD, UV/Vis, Fluorescence) • Single Molecule Methods • Superresolution Imaging • Time-Resolved Spectroscopy • Transient State Kinetics • Vibrational Spectroscopy (Infrared and Raman) • X-Ray and Neutron Scattering and Diffraction • X-Ray Crystallography • None/Other

Biophysics of Neuroscience 9A

Molecular and Cellular Neuroscience Computational Neuroscience

9B 9C

Neuroscience: Experimental Approaches and Tools

New Developments in Biophysical Techniques 10A EPR and NMR: Spectroscopy and Imaging 10B ElectronMicroscopy 10C Diffraction and Scattering Techniques 10D Molecular Dynamics 10E

Computational Methods andMachine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Bioinformatics Optical Microscopy and Superresolution Imaging Optical Spectroscopy: CD, UV-VIS, Vibrational, Fluorescence Force Spectroscopy and Scanning Probe Microscopy Single-Molecule Spectroscopy

10F 10G 10H

10I

Bioengineering and Biomaterials 11A Bioengineering 11B Biosensors 11C Biosurfaces 11D Micro- and Nanotechnology 11E Biomaterials Biophysics Education 12A Biophysics Education

Since graduate school, BPS Annual Meetings have givenme a sense of community by creating an environment in which I can find peers, collaborators, future colleagues, and amazing mentors. Annual meetings are the best time of the year, as I often get tomeet biophysicists from around the world that I only knew from research articles or Twitter, while reuniting with those that I’ve met before!

— Tugba Ozturk, Washington University in St. Louis

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Communities

Lisandra Flores-Aldama Committee for Inclusion and Diversity (CID)

Lisandra Flores-Aldama

Is this your first volunteer position for BPS? If not, what other positions have you held?

and equity, but the best part is that I have enjoyed doing it. It is great to be surrounded by people that not only care about minorities but also work towards a more equitable environ ment within the BPS community and society in general. I know there is a lot to be done by our committee and it is a huge challenge, but every minute I spend volunteering for the CID is a grain of sand to build a better society and have a positive impact on the future biophysicist generations, and that feeling is priceless. Do you have advice for others who might be thinking about volunteering? Please do not think more about it, just join us and you will enjoy it! The environment among the volunteers is so positive, healthy, and encouraging! Also, the BPS staff is supportive and great at their jobs. It is not only going to be wonderful for your career but for you as a human being and for future gen erations that will have access to more equitable opportunities because of our work. When not volunteering for BPS, what do you work on? I spend a good amount of time working in the lab or on my computer. I love basic science questions such as how the structure and chemical-physical properties of RNAs and ion channels modulate their functional properties and physiolog ical impact. Besides scientific work, I try to go to the gym as much as possible. As a good Cuban, I love music and dancing, and seeing me dancing while working at the lab is common. Work hard but enjoy when you do it!

Yes, this is my first volunteer position for BPS, and for sure it won’t be the only one. I have also volunteered for other societies and organizations. I have contributed to the devel opment of Black in Biophysics since its founding, which has been quite an amazing experience. Why do you volunteer? BPS is a community formed by scientists from different back grounds that strive to achieve success within an incredibly selfish society. As an Afro-Cuban woman raised in a country under a dictatorship, I have experienced the sour flavor of discrimination and lack of opportunity. But growing up within a household composed of only incredible women taught me that with commitment, perseverance, and determination there is not an unreachable goal. By volunteering on the Committee for Inclusion and Diversity (CID), I aim to encour age younger generations from low-income neighborhoods, especially Black and Hispanic communities, to fight for their dreams, to be proud of their roots, and also show them that despite a disadvantaged starting point, we can make a differ ence if we fight together and support each other. What has been a highlight from your volunteer experience? Volunteering for the CID has been an amazing and enriching experience. I have learned so much about diversity, inclusion,

Join the BPS PUI Network Are you looking to connect with other PUI faculties or interested in obtaining academic positions at Primarily Undergraduate Institution (PUIs)? Join the BPS PUI Network. The network creates opportunities for current PUI faculty to network and share experiences with one another. Members of the Network exchange tips and ideas such as teaching strategies, latest trends in education technology, online teaching, and more. Graduate students and postdocs interested in obtaining academic positions at PUIs are encouraged to join. Questions can be directed to Margaret Mainguy at mmainguy@biophysics.org. www.biophysics.org/PUI-Network

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Communities

Welcome New Committee Members! The Biophysical Society is pleased to welcome the newest members of BPS Committees. These individuals will volunteer their time, energy, and expertise to help BPS Committees make a direct impact to our community and the Society. BPS aims for both diversity in perspective and depth of expertise and, with staggered terms, the Committees are always changing. We look forward to working together! Awards Committee Tanja Mittag Stephen Tucker Committee on Inclusion & Diversity (CID)

Early Careers Committee Maryam Al-Khannaq Senjuti Banerjee Swati Day Charlotte Smith Education Committee Esmael Haddadian Thayaparan Paramanathan Rita Sirrieh Fellows Committee Gilad Haran Lee Sweeney Pernilla Wittung-Stafshede

Finance Committee Cynthia Czajkowski Membership Committee Seth Weinberg Publications Committee David Stokes

Meghna Gupta Catherine Royer Committee on Professional Opportunities for Women (CPOW) Anne Carlson Nelli Mnatsakanyan Vivian Onyali Padmini Rangamani

Subgroups Theory & Computation Subgroup Launches Two NewAwards The Theory & Computation Subgroup is establishing an Early Career Award and a Mid-Career Award for scientists working in the topical areas covered by the Subgroup. The Early Career Award is intended for scientists within the first five years of their first independent appointment, while the Mid-Career Award is intended for researchers within the first fifteen years of their first independent appointment. Award recipients will present a talk on Subgroup Saturday in the Theory & Computation Subgroup Symposium. Each award also comes with a monetary prize of $1,500 which the awardee can use as they please, including to help defray the costs of travel to the BPS Annual Meeting. Both awards are sponsored by the Chicago Center for Theoretical Chemistry. For full eligibility requirements and nomination instructions, please visit biophysics.org/awards-funding/subgroup-awards. — Gregory A. Voth , Chair

Competition. Numbers By the

From 2018 to 2022, 701 students have participated in the Student Research Achievement Award (SRAA) Poster

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Career Development

WritingYour Thesis: Some Inspiration forGettingStarted Are you a graduate student approach ing graduation and needing to tackle your thesis? Are you stuck on what to write and where to start? Have you gotten some unhelpful advice such as “just write”? Here are some tips for making what can seem like a daunting proposition more manageable. First, take a deep breath and realize results should detail what the figure is showing using words. Imagine that you are describing the figure to someone who is driving, so they cannot take their eyes off the road. How would you describe it? What is the most important part they need to hear to understand the significance of the results in the figure? Whatever answers those questions is what you should write. The discussion should put the results of the fig ures into the context of the literature and the larger scientific body of knowledge. How does it relate to prior works? How does it extend the field? What is missing to support or knock down a model or theory?

that you are not alone in this quest to put word to paper. Whether it is your first publication or your thesis (or an advice column!), it can be hard to get your words out of your head and onto the page. Here are a few useful tips; hopefully, some of these will work for you. You should realize that your thesis is your book. You can make it what you want, written for whom you want, in the style that you want. This is especially true if you have already published a peer-reviewed paper or two. Consider writing the introduction chapter so that it is accessible to a new grad student who might be coming into your lab after you finish. What do they need to know to understand the project and how to follow up? Alternatively, you can write your book for an expert, but do make sure you define any jargon or abbreviations the first time you use them! If you have given a talk on your research, you have had to give the audience an introduction. That is a great place to start with your introduction chapter. Hopefully your talk’s introduction gave background information, dis cussed the significance of the questions you were pursuing, and gave scientific context for the work with the use of imag es. Use that as a starting point. Again, if you have already published a paper or two, these can be updated to insert as chapters in the thesis. If you have not, I recommend starting by making the figures you think you need to tell the story for each chapter. The figures can be multi-panel or single images. The figures for each chapter should tell the story of how you did the work outlining the methods used, showing raw data, how the data was quanti fied and analyzed, and the results. Once you think you have the figures made, use them to write long captions that describe the methods, the results, and some discussion about each figure. The writing of these

When you have these long captions written for each figure, you can use those words to create the methods section, the results section, and the discussion section for your chapter. Don’t forget to re-write the real figure captions, which should be shorter, like you would read in a Biophysical Journal article. I recommend writing the introduction paragraphs to the chap ters last—after you have the other parts written. If you have a truly bad case of writer’s block, try to get out of your own head and lower your inhibitions. Listen to a song that pumps you up and makes you feel amazing. Another trick is to try for volume. In your first drafting, do not try to be perfect or even good, just get words out on the page. As much as you can. Pretend you are going to print it and weigh it, and you will only pass your defense if it weighs 50 kg. I repeat: it doesn’t need to be perfect! It just needs to be there. You and your advisor can wade, rip, or shred through it to make it bet ter, but you need to have a draft to edit. Don’t be afraid to red mark it after that first draft. It might literally look like it went through a meat grinder, but it is easier to cut than to create. Finally, logistically, your graduate school will have a specific guideline for the format of the thesis. I recommend finding a template for either Word or LaTex for your thesis from anoth er student. Most programs have templates that students use floating around. Just ask! Importantly, remember that you can do this! This is your work. No one else really knows all the work, blood, sweat, and tears that went into getting this data. This is your chance to explain it all in glorious detail. You’ve got this—because you did it already! — Molly Cule

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