Biophysical Society Bulletin | March 2026

Publications

Know the Editor Ana-Nicoleta Bondar University of Bucharest Editor, Proteins Biophysical Journal

Editor’s Pick

Ana-Nicoleta Bondar

What are you currently working on that excites you? We work on understanding how membrane proteins use hydrogen-bond networks to perform their biological func tion. We are particularly interested in understanding how such networks help stabilize a protein structure, intercon nect functionally important sites of the protein, and estab lish proton-conducting wires. I am really excited about the collaborations with colleagues with whom we work together on questions of common interest. In my laboratory, we use modeling and molecular simulations to study the motions of membrane systems. The hydrogen-bond networks that we study are dynamic and typically involve water molecules, and from the long simulations that we perform, we often derive rather large datasets. To analyze these efficiently, we de velop specialized graph-based algorithms and codes. These approaches have allowed us to discover, for example, that a membrane receptor already has in place much of its internal hydrogen-bond network before an external ligand has bound to it, and it can rearrange in a ligand-specific manner. This is potentially important for interactions between the receptor and other partners of the cellular signal transduction path way. How do you stay on top of all the latest developments in your field? I like to regularly read scientific papers, new and old. As an editorial board member, I read manuscripts and the exchange between authors and reviewers. I check notifications that I receive about new papers and read those that I find interest ing. I look at the reference lists of papers that I read. I attend conferences and listen to the talks and discuss with col leagues. I also very much enjoy reading the science sections of the newspapers that we subscribe to at home.

Biophysical Journal Mitochondrial position responds to glucose stimulation in a model of the pancreatic beta cell Luis Perez, Xue Wen Ng, Michael Mohs, David W. Piston, and Shankar Mukherji “In neurons, mitochondria hang out by the power-intensive synapses. Is this just the way neurons are, or is this a cel lular adaptation? New models and measurements by Perez et al. suggest that this is an adaptive response across cell types: glucose stimulation drives mitochondria toward the cell periphery in pancreatic beta cells through cAMP/PKA/ Ca²⁺-activated kinesin transport along microtubules. This was enabled by models of a biased random walk tied in with new, pixel-level quantification of mitochondrial spatial distribu tions: distributions of all mitochondrial pixel distances from the nucleus center enable comparison across cells of varying sizes and mitochondrial content, overcoming barriers met in previous single molecule tracking efforts. This work is an exciting advance that establishes positioning of mitochondria as an active response to energetic demands.” Version of Record Published December 18, 2025 DOI: https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.bpj.2025.11.018

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