Biophysical Society Bulletin | November 2020

Publications

Know the BJ Editor Rumiana Dimova

César A. Ramírez- Sarmiento to Receive BJ Paper of the Year Award

Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces Editor, Membranes

“Differential Local Stability Governs the Meta- morphic Fold-switch of Bacterial Virulence Factor RfaH” has been selected as the Biophysi- cal Journal Paper of the Year and corresponding author César A. Ramírez-Sarmiento will receive the award. Ramírez-Sarmiento is an assistant professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Institute for Biological andMedical Engineering.

Rumiana Dimova

At a cocktail party of non-scientists, how would you explain what you do? This is (almost) a true story. It was not a cocktail party as such, but just a party with two “camps” of guests. One of them consisted of friends frommy institute. The others were mainly from the circle of political scientists. I was fed up with communicating only with people of my “camp” and went straight to the political scientists group. Naturally came the question of what do I do. I said, “Well, look at your skin— it is composed of tiny little cells and these cells have a membrane to keep them safe and sound. This membrane would not allow bad things to enter your cells and kill them. It has to be tough not to break, but soft to deform, and depending on what swims around it, it can change. This is what we do in my group: We look at how different mole- cules, that swim around the membrane or from which it is composed, alter its properties.” Some days later, the person that asked me this took me to a dinner and on the paper ta- blecloth of the restaurant, I started drawing little heads with legs (to explain lipids as the building blocks of membranes) that would then make round vesicles. Later, he married me. One day, he told me that he is proud he knows there is a difference between lipids and vesicles. I specialize on the giant ones and recently even published “The Giant Vesicle Book”, which is both giant and about giant vesicles. We are still happily married with two kids and the book decorates our library. How do you stay on top of all the latest developments in your field? You might laugh, but for the last year or so, I do that by following some nice feeds on twitter, where I have come across tons of interesting research. And of course, I am happy that I have very invested students and postdocs who bug me with papers that we occasionally discuss in our journal club.

César A. Ramírez-Sarmiento

Published in the January 7, 2020, issue of Biophysical Journal , the authors combine molecular dynamics and structural biology to unveil hotspots that differentially stabilize both inactive and active states of the protein RfaH. Their findings provide insights that will guide the design of inhibitors blocking RfaH action. The article was a collaboration with several authors: Pablo Galaz-Davi- son , José Alejandro Molina , Steve Silletti , Elizabeth A. Komives , Stefan H. Knauer , and Irina Artsimovitch . This paper was nominated by Associate Editor Elizabeth Rhoades who chose it because “it addresses a very topical subject in the molecular basis of conformational switching in a chameleon domain in the RfaH protein. Classical biophysical approaches - HDXMS and NMR, combined withMD simulations - are used to pinpoint the residues involved in stabilization of each of the structurally distinct inactive and active conformations of this domain and highlight the importance of dynamics in the function of this protein. The journal presents this award to a young investigator for their excellent contribution to science published in the journal within the last year. The honor includes a monetary award and a plaque. In addition, Ramírez-Sarmiento will speak about his research as part of the Biophysical Journal Symposium, Wednesday, February 24, 2021, 10:00 am -11:30 am Eastern Standard Time, during the BPS Annual Meeting.

Access Online at https:/www.cell.com/biophysj/ collections/biophysics-of-calcium

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