Biophysical Society Bulletin | June 2018

Biophysicist in Profile

Officers President Angela Gronenborn President-Elect David Piston Past-President Lukas Tamm Secretary Frances Separovic Treasurer Kalina Hristova Council

I got a job offer from Molecular Probes in about three weeks,” he shares. “At the time, it was hard for me to leave the hypocrellin research project on which we had made significant progress that resulted in big funding from Canada Research Council and Alberta Heritage Foundation; however, I wanted so much to try something new, and therefore, I decided to join Molecular Probes. It turned out that my decision did not disappoint me. Dr. Haugland’s immense knowledge and passion for science deeply impressed me. I had chances to ex- change ideas and discuss research projects all the time.”

tion of FLIPR calcium assay kits for the high throughput screeening (HTS) market; these products quickly became the gold standard in the HTS market.”

Zev Bryant Jane Clarke Linda Columbus Bertrand Garcia-Moreno Teresa Giraldez Ruben Gonzalez, Jr. Arthur Palmer Marina Ramirez-Alvarado Jennifer Ross David Stokes Joanna Swain Pernilla Wittung-Stafeshede Biophysical Journal Jane Dyson Editor-in-Chief Society Office Ro Kampman Executive Officer Newsletter Executive Editor Rosalba Kampman Managing Editor Beth Staehle Contributing Writers and Proofreaders Dorothy Chaconas Laura Phelan

Diwu with Luke Lavis in Chemistry Lab at Molecular Devices.

In 2006 he founded AAT Bioquest, a small biotech company. “We love to see our products being used to advance biophysical and other scientific research. Our research and develop- ment in calcium detection is a great example. Influenced by Dr. Tsien’s talk at Molecular Probes, I have been passionate to improve calcium detection by providing more effective tools to scientists since calcium detection is essential and important for cellular communi- cations and signal transduction,” he shares. “By AAT Bioquest’s second year, we had introduced our first calcium product, Fluo-8®. Following our early success of Fluo-8, we introduced the follow-up calcium detection products, Cal-520® and Calbryte™-520 that have far superior properties than the earlier calcium dyes such as Fluo-3 and Fluo-4. AAT Bioquest is investing more than half of its revenue back to research projects. Our current focus is to develop infrared calcium detection products that enable calcium imaging with live animals, a rapidly growing research area, but limited by the availability of infrared fluorescent detec- tion reagents.” Throughout his career, Diwu has followed his passions, and advises young scientists to do the same: “If you are interested in what you do and passionate about your projects, you al- ways feel energetic and actively pursue it with a great chance to succeed. No matter what re- sults you get you always feel happy. If there is a better opportunity, do a good analysis before you make your final decision. There is nothing wrong with changing direction or making some adjustments as long as you are well prepared.”

Diwu with his family.

In 1996, Nobel laureate Roger Tsien visited Mo- lecular Probes and gave a lecture on fluores- cent probes and their applications. “I was lucky to have a dinner with Dr. Tsien, who mentioned the story of Fluo-3 discovery. I admired his brilliant idea to invent Fluo-3 based on the prototype calcium ion indicator, EGTA,” he says. “Since then, I have had a strong interest in developing fluorescent probes for calcium de- tections, which led to [AAT Bioquest’s] recent development of the best calcium probes on the market such as Cal-520® and Calbryte-520.” Diwu left Molecular Probes in 2000 for Mo- lecular Devices, after becoming interested in the company’s calcium detection-dedicated FLIPR instrument. “At the time it was the only instrument that could kinetically read calcium signals in a high throughput mode due to its outstanding liquid handling and fast reading capability,” he explains. “I had a strong inter- est in learning the integration of fluorescence detection reagents and systems. I contacted Molecular Devices for a job opportunity and was luckily offered the Director of Chemistry. We successfully developed the first genera-

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Ray Wolfe Catie Curry

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