Biophysical Society Bulletin | May 2024

Biophysicist in Profile

Linderstrøm-Lang Centre brings together protein scientists with a broad set of interests and skills and is highly collabo rative.” “Our current research falls into two broad themes. In one area, we combine molecular simulations with experiments to study the structure, function, and dynamics of proteins. Many of these projects are collaborative, and I enjoy working closely with experimental groups and developing the techniques needed to integrate experiments and simulations as closely as possible. In this research we work on many different types of systems, including folded, globular proteins, membrane proteins, and highly disordered proteins. Another major theme in the group is to predict and understand the impact of missense variants on protein stability and function,” he con veys. “Here, the goal is to figure out which missense variants cause disease, and what the molecular mechanisms might be. This work is also collaborative, and we work closely with people who perform cell-based and biochemical assays.” Lindorff-Larsen finds the collaborative nature of science to be one of the most rewarding parts of research. “While the work I am doing is continuously changing, I have always enjoyed trying to bring together different expertise and methods to tackle new types of problems,” he shares. “Over the years we have worked together with many experimental groups combining our methods and ideas to move the field forward. I also very much enjoy learning from and being inspired by the people in the group. A nice thing about biophysics is that many of the problems really require the use of many different methods, so it is often highly collaborative by nature.”

While biophysics is a broad, diverse field moving forward in many directions, in his areas of focus Lindorff-Larsen has been trying to push research forward in two main directions. “First, we are increasingly focusing on the dynamics of com plex biomolecular systems and how these dynamics relate to function. Second, we are pushing to move computational biophysics to the proteome scale,” he declares. “One recent example is that we have calculated the effects of all possi ble missense variants on the stability of all human proteins, substituting each amino acid for all 19 other possibilities at each residue. Another example is our recent work in which we performed molecular simulations of all 28,000 disordered regions from the human proteome.” One piece of advice he shares for early career biophysicists is not to listen to too much advice. “Or rather, to realize that we each do what we do in different ways, and our paths are varied. That said, there are a few things that are important for me. First, I think research should be fun and creative. Second, I enjoy collaborative science and we will often select projects that enable us to learn new things by working with others. Third, I have personally benefitted a lot from having a good overview of the literature. In a time where many things move very rapidly, I think one can often learn a lot by remembering that biophysics is not a new field, and that we can build on the research, ideas, and results from many others over the years. So, instead of just reading the same papers as everyone else, I recommend also to read outside the most recent big publica tions,” he advises. On a broader scale, “My main advice would be to find something you enjoy doing, and see whether you can find a way of getting to work on those things.”

Biophysical Society Thematic Meeting

Submit an Abstract and Share Your Research Abstract Submission Deadline: June 3, 2024 Early Registration Deadline: June 24, 2024

Emerging Theoretical Approaches to Compliment Single-Particle Cryo-Electron Microscopy Trieste, Italy | October 21–25, 2024

The field of biology is experiencing a transformative phase, thanks to remarkable advances in single-particle cryo-electron microscopy (cryo-EM). This Thematic Meeting seeks to explore the interface between computational biophysics and cryo-EM, highlighting the breadth of work that spans these two fields, and encouraging new synergies. Our goal for this meeting is to maximize the potential of computations and experiments in the field of single-particle cryo-EM.

For more information, visit www.biophysics.org/2024Trieste

May 2024

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