Biophysical Society Bulletin | May 2020

Biophysicist in Profile

Patricia Soto Areas of Research To decipher the pathological folding behavior of the prion protein.

Institution Creighton University

At-a-Glance

Patricia Soto grew up in Bogotá, Colombia, the daughter of an elementary school teacher and a salesman. The family believed in the importance of education, a value that she took to heart and continues to prioritize as an associate professor in the physics department at Creighton University, a primarily undergraduate institution (PUI).

Patricia Soto

As a teenager, Patricia Soto read about particle physics and the experiments being performed at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, known as CERN. It ignited a passion with- in her, and informed her decision to study physics in college, at Universidad de los Andes in Bogotá. “In my opinion, CERN represents one of the greatest enterprises of humankind,” she says. “However, after a couple of years in college other insights influenced my decision to move to biophysics: In a long conver- sation, that 25 years later I still remember, a dear philosophy teacher argued that the ‘next’ century (that is, the 21st century) would be about the human body, what is inside us. I also ap- proached a professor in electrical engineering who introduced me to the world of molecular modeling of ion channels. I imme- diately fell in love with the power of the technique! It seemed to me the perfect blend of physical modeling, interesting biologi- cal questions, and my delight with computer coding.” She had not encountered a personal computer until her fresh- man year of college, but once she did, she started tinkering with code writing in her spare time. She also read quite a bit about the unknowns of the human brain, and thought that physics could offer powerful tools to decipher the behavior of neurons. During her undergraduate studies, Soto had the opportunity to work on an educational project with Aldona Gabriunas , a physics faculty member who was implementing active learning techniques in introductory physics courses for engineering students. She was also involved in a project to train high school teachers to bring modern physics to the classroom, under the leadership of Bernardo Gómez . After she finished college, she tried a few different careers, including scientometrics, human rights activism, and high school teaching. She quickly realized that her calling was to pursue a doctorate, so she began preparations. She worked on her English language skills, and started checking the affiliations of authors who wrote articles she could understand, to narrow down places to apply to graduate school. She received a travel award to attend the IUPAB (International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics) conference in New Delhi, India, “far from my country and close to my professional goals,” she shares. She

earned her PhD at the University of Groningen in the Nether- lands, where her main focus was figuring out the driving forces of peptide folding in non-aqueous environments. Soto then undertook postdoctoral work at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in the group of Joan-Emma Shea . “I enjoyed the most being so close to top-notch science, per- fect weather, and the Pacific Ocean shoreline!” she says. “My main project focused on identifying the factors that drive and stabilize the aggregation of short sequences derived from the Alzheimer’s A β peptide. Under the guidance of my PI, I was able to secure funding from the American Association of University Women.” During her postdoc, she had the opportunity to attend her first professional conference, an American Chemical Society meeting. She wanted to use the conference as an opportuni- ty to explore career pathways in industry and academia, and as part of that search, she decided to attend a panel called “How to Establish a Research Program at a PUI,” though she did not know what PUI stood for. “I immediately felt a unique connection with the panelists and the attendees: I marveled at the genuine excitement of the panelists on how to combine teaching and research with undergrads. I was also impressed with the attendees who sat nearby me and who were willing to answer my questions,” she shares. “I then decided that getting a faculty position at a PUI would fit what I believe in: the power of education combined with the indescribable intellectual joy of scientific research.” She was hired for a one-year position in the physics depart- ment at Creighton University, a PUI in Omaha, Nebraska, which was then renewed for a couple of years until she began a tenure-track contract. “I earned tenure in the year 2017, after I benefitted from the extension of the tenure clock due to ma- ternity leaves,” she explains. Following the birth of her second child, Soto decided to reach out to Latinos in her community, putting together a presenta- tion of her research on protein misfolding targeted at Latino

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