Biophysical Society Bulletin | March 2023

President’s Message

Emerging from the Other End of the Tunnel As was true for many Biophysical

exists, and over my career, I have been deeply impressed by how much a single well-trained scientist can accomplish. Increasing diversity is also the right thing to do by making it more likely that the fruits of biophysics research are enjoyed by all human beings. The pandemic and social justice movements only accentuated the problems and opportunities. I will advocate for deeper changes to the Biophysical Society tomake diversity and inclusion our number one priority. 2) Global reach. Decades ago, the founders of the Society were prescient in not naming it the American Biophysical Society. Talents in biophysics come from every continent and scientif ic discoveries enabled by biophysical methods touch all of us regardless of nationality. Already pre-pandemic, the National Lecture was renamed as the BPS Lecture, the Council added in ternational members, and our Past President was fromAustralia. The pandemic accelerated the ongoing trend of digitization and virtual meetings, and we now have the technologies and experi ences to further enhance the global reach of biophysics and the Biophysical Society. 3) Advocacy. The Biophysical Society is mobilizing members to communicate the value of biophysics to the public and funding bodies through the development of a toolkit to help train and equip them. Again, the pandemic gave us first-hand knowledge of how important effective public communication is and gave us accelerated training on digital tools of networking and discourse that we can deploy in the post-pandemic world. On a personal level, I call myself an accidental biophysicist. All my degrees are in physics, and I taught physics at a large public university for 15 years. Everything I know about biophysics, I learned through the Biophysical Society. The Biophysical Soci ety Annual Meetings are “meetings” in the truest sense tome. I spendmuch of my time in the poster sessions (we have the most vibrant poster sessions of any scientific meeting!), bumping into colleagues young and old, with a mean free path of about five meters. I ask what is exciting and get a five-minute summary of the latest work of a colleague. It is difficult to replicate such un scripted interactions digitally, and the future success of biophysics and the Biophysical Society depends on our ability to put together exciting and forward-looking programs for our Annual Meetings. The Society is already experimenting with virtualization of more scripted events such as workshops that focus on technologies, andmore member-targeted virtual events will help enhance the global exchange of knowledge. Change is good andmore changes are ahead. I amhopeful we have emerged at the other end of the tunnel, more united and stronger. As I beginmy term as presi dent, I welcome the membership to contact me via email (tjha@ jhu.edu) or Twitter (@taekjip) and give me the opportunity to listen to your concerns and big ideas. — Taekjip Ha , President

Society members, my last trip before the COVID-19 pandemic was to our Annual Meeting in San Diego in February 2020. The BPS Lecturer X. Sunney Xie had to deliver his Mon day evening lecture through Skype fromBeijing, China due to the travel ban imposed by the Trump admin istration. The BPS Lecture, renamed from the “BPS National Lecture” to

Taekjip Ha

emphasize the international reach of the Society, is the most prestigious honor awarded by the Biophysical Society. Even through the video screen, Sunney captivated a 5,000-strong live audience with his fascinating discoveries made using sin gle-molecule and single-cell technologies, ending his lecture by describing neutralizing antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 identified through single-cell sequencing of patient B cells. Still, I doubt any one sitting in the packed roomhad imagined the magnitude and duration of the pandemic soon to hit us just several weeks later. Two years later, we finally reconvened at an in-person Annual Meeting in San Francisco just as the initial Omicron wave was receding, and Frances Arnold , our 2022 BPS Lecturer and Nobel Laureate inspired us through her telling of the journey through directed evolution of engineered enzymes. We were one of the more fortunate societies because we had to skip only one in-per son Annual Meeting due to the timing of events that unfolded. As I write this column two weeks before our 2023meeting, we are on track to restore almost all of our regular activities. The only exception, as a precaution, is that we will forgo the dance and ice cream social that typically follows the BPS Lecture. 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 quantitative methods. We witnessed biophysicists rising to the challenge of the pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus. The value of rigorous science and scientific methods to humanity has rarely been as self-ev ident. The Biophysical Society’s role is to help its members to become heroes of their own scientific endeavors. As I step in to start my one-year term as the President of the Biophysical Society, I aim to continue our strategic emphasis on 1) diversity, 2) global reach, and 3) advocacy. Ultimately, we seek to improve human conditions for everyone, and the pandemic made it clear that diseases have no borders, talent is everywhere, immigrants are the engine of innovation, and effective communi cation of science is essential to gaining trust from the public. 1) Diversity. Why is it so difficult to improve workforce diversity in science, technology, engineering, andmath? I believe that if diver sity is a secondary priority, we will never make sufficient progress. It should be of the highest priority. Increasing diversity benefits the scientific enterprise by drawing talent from everywhere it

March 2023

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