Biophysical Society Bulletin | May 2019

BiophysicsWeek

Highlights fromAffiliate Events Biophysics Week Manifestation in Belgrade (Serbia) On March 29, the Biophysical Society of Serbia partnered with the Center for the Promotion of Science (CPS), for a series of lectures on popular biophysics topics entitled “Biophysics of Signals and Models“ given by young researchers from the Faculties of Biology and Medicine of the University of Bel- grade. The three lectures were, “How to Teach the Machine to Recognize Biological Signals,“ by Andrej Korenić ; “Waves in the Cardiovascular System,“ by Bojana Stojadinović ; and “Fractals and Images,“ by Nemanja Rajković . The lectures were open to the general public. After each of the lectures, the audience asked questions and at the end of the session, a panel engaged in a lively discussion. During the session the leaflets downloaded and printed in color from the Biophysics Week site were distributed among the audience.

Biophysics Week at The Institute of Cell Biophysics, Russian Academy of Sciences The Institute of Cell Biophysics of the Russian Academy of Sciences held several lectures during Biophysics Week. Professor Vsevolod Tverdislov spoke about chirality and its manifestation in biological systems. The academic lecture was presented in such a way that it was understandable even to non-biophysicists! Professor Renad Zhdanov talked about how everyone could choose a strategy for living a long and healthy life and provided many references and exam- ples. Professor Valery Zinchenko spoke about calcium waves in cells and organs and their role in the functioning of living systems. Biophysics Week organizer Vasily Pushcino lectured about ecology and presented a model for the formation of nuclear pores, taking into account the hydrodynamic forces and surface tension energy of membrane vesicles from which a membrane and pores are formed in the core. After each lecture, they answered questions. They are already planning for Biophysics Week 2020!

Biophysics Week at Bridgewater State University Bridgewater State University, the oldest permanently located institution of public higher education in Massachusetts cele- brated Biophysics Week with three different activities. The first activity was to educate the college community about the 2018 Nobel Prize. Biophysics research students designed posters highlighting “Optical Tweezers and their Applications to Biological Systems.” These posters were displayed in the hallway of the Science Center to target a general audience throughout the week. To encourage everyone to read the posters, a gift card raffle was introduced. To win you had to vote for the winning poster and explain why you selected that poster. A few hundred people voted. For the second activity, students interested in biophysics watched the Biophysical Journal sponsored webinar “High Throughput Single Molecule Techniques” on March 27. The week was capped off by a talk given by Jeff Gelles , the recipient of the Society’s 2019 Kazuhiko Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics. The interest that was infectious throughout the week lead to a record-breaking crowd to Gelles’s talk on a Friday evening, necessitating a change of venue to a bigger auditorium. The spectacular and informational talk by Gelles provided the perfect finish for the 2019 celebration at Bridgewater State University.

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