Biophysical Society Bulletin | May 2024

Communities

Da-Neng Wang Thematic Meetings Committee

Da-Neng Wang

Is this your first volunteer position for BPS? If not, what other positions have you held? No, I previously volunteered on the Publications Committee, including serving as its Chair. I was also a member of the Advisory Board of the BPS-IOP eBook Series. I first started volunteering with BPS after receiving tenure. Why do you volunteer? The Biophysical Society is my scientific home, and it is only natural that I contribute. I first joined the Society when, still a postdoc in Germany, I was invited to speak at the Bioenerget ics Subgroup Meeting in 1994. Ever since then BPS has helped my research work and career development more than any other society. I want to give back by promoting biophysics and helping the next generation of biophysicists. What has been a highlight from your volunteer experience? I would regard the efforts in initializing the Cryo-EM Subgroup as my most rewarding experience. Soon after the “Resolution Revolution” in cryo-EM happened, a few of us ( Ed Egelman , Bridget Carragher , Yifan Cheng , Irina Serysheva , David Stokes , and I) thought setting up a Subgroup in this area would benefit the biophysics community as a whole. Our initiative was enthu siastically welcomed by the community. One month after the launch of the Subgroup in 2016, a webinar on the revolution in

cryo-EM that the Publications Committee co-organized with Cell Press [BPS’s publishing partner for Biophysical Journal and Biophysical Reports ] attracted almost 2,000 attendees. Such efforts helped BPS to become a “go-to” society for presenting results in cryo-EM. Do you have advice for others who might be thinking about volunteering? Start volunteering early and do not wait until you become a principal investigator or receive tenure. One major benefit is networking. In addition to suggesting initiatives and carrying out duties that BPS requires, volunteering will provide ample opportunities for meeting with both senior biophysicists and peers at your own career stage. Senior scientists can provide valuable advice, whereas peers often become collaborators and lifelong friends. When not volunteering for BPS, what do you work on? I am a structural biologist and our lab focuses on mechanistic understanding of membrane transporters. Such proteins play essential roles in nutrient uptake, metabolic signaling, and drug resistance. Together with friends using single-molecule FRET [flurorescence resonance energy transfer] and MD [molecular dynamics] simulations, we want to understand the structure, energetics, and real-time conformational dynamics of these cellular gatekeepers.

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