Biophysical Society Bulletin | November 2022

Biophysicist in Profile

Leland P. Vickers Areas of Research Thermodynamics of protein stability and microcalorimetry

Institution Retired from Bayer Animal Health US

At-a-Glance

Leland P. Vickers enrolled in a biochemistry graduate program in the early 1970s, where he first encountered biophysicists. He came to realize biophysics was the field for him and pursued a ten ure-track academic career for several years before accepting a position with a veterinary pharma ceutical company. For the next 30 years, he worked in research management, quality management, and regulatory affairs for three different veterinary drug companies.

Leland P. Vickers

Leland P. Vickers grew up on the east coast of the United States, with time spent in Delaware, Florida, New Jersey, New Hampshire, and Maryland. His family moved frequent ly, but he was able to complete all four years of high school in Wicomico County, Maryland. He completed a bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Harding College in Arkansas. This was a predominantly undergraduate school, but he was able to conduct a small research project related to reaction kinetics for a Diels-Alder mechanism. Following the completion of his bachelor’s degree, he decided to move back closer to home for grad uate school. At this point in time Vickers knew he wanted to study biochemistry, with an emphasis on physical chemistry and mathemat ics, but he was not aware of the existence of the field of biophys ics. “I visited and interviewed with two graduate programs, and then decided to enroll in the biochemis try PhD program at the University of Virginia, located in the School of Medicine,” he shares. “Arriving on the grounds in July 1972, I was welcomed into a department culture that was heavily invested in biophysical research.” The department was about evenly divided between research programs in lipids and membranes and programs in proteins and enzymes. Vickers was accepted into the research group of Gary K. Ackers . Ackers was a past president of the Bio physical Society, as was the department chair, Tom Thompson . “Through their encouragement, I joined the Biophysical Soci ety as a student member in 1972. Yes, that means that this year is my 51st year as a Society member!” The Ackers group worked closely with the research group of Rodney L. Biltonen , Vickers in his last year of graduate school, 1976, in the Ackers lab.

and Vickers and the other graduate students benefitted from shared journal clubs and research discussion meetings, par ticularly focused on microcalorimetry and the thermodynam ics of binding reactions and conformational transitions. Early in his second year of graduate school, with the encourage ment of Ackers, Vickers decided to move his degree program into the Interdisciplinary Program in Biophysics. He defended his dissertation and completed all the requirements for a PhD in biophysics in February 1976. Vickers remarks, “One thing that I greatly appreciated about the guidance from Ackers was that he always encouraged his students to read and think very widely. Graduate school was best used as a time to learn in a variety of areas. Of course, one must be focused on a specific research project for the dissertation, but not to the exclusion of other interests. Fortu nately, I was able to leave Ackers’ group with publications from my dissertation, but also with two small notes that were published in related areas.” Ackers encouraged his students to attend scientific meetings and present their research findings. He particularly encouraged attendance at Biophysical Society meetings, and he was able to find travel funds for many of the graduate students to attend each year. Following completion of his PhD, Vickers started a three-year National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Fellowship at the University of California, Berkeley, in the research group of Howard K. Schachman . He moved from working on one large, multi-subunit enzyme in the Ackers laboratory to a different allosteric enzyme in the Schachman group. Vickers spent those years learning new techniques and applying familiar techniques to new questions, and he recalls that the late 1970s were great years to be in the Bay Area to hear the latest research results, news, and seminars by all the people visiting from week to week. “It was sometimes diffi cult to find the time to work in my own laboratory space on my own projects. Schachman had made a personal decision

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