Biophysical Society Bulletin | October 2025

Publications

Know the Editor Syma Khalid University of Oxford

Editor’s Pick

Editor, Computational Biophysics Biophysical Journal

Syma Khalid

What are you currently working on that excites you? I am really excited about our collaborative work on trying to answer the question of what does the surface of Gram-nega tive bacteria look like. Bacteria are far simpler organisms than humans, but despite many decades of study, it turns out that we still do not know how the surface of bacteria is orga nized. It is important that we do so, from both a fundamental microbiology/biophysics perspective and the perspective of facilitating the rational development of new antibiotics—the latter because antibiotics have to either disrupt the bacterial surface or penetrate it to move into the cell to disrupt some intracellular process, but in either case, interaction with the surface must occur. My group uses molecular modeling and simulation to predict how biological molecules interact with each other. Generally, models used to study molecular interactions are very simpli fied. However, combining data from our experimental collab orators with some new lipid computational models developed by my team, we now have a computer model of the Esche richia coli outer surface that is realistic in composition and large enough to visualize the impact of antibiotics. It is really exciting to see the molecules moving about finding their ideal positions as they interact with each other in the simulations that we perform on high-performance computing resources— what we are discovering is that the complexity of biology should be neither underestimated nor neglected. Who would you like to sit next to at a dinner party? I am going to pick a non-scientist, because it would be almost impossible to pick just one scientist. Assuming I can have someone who is no longer with us, I would like to sit next to the writer Hunter S. Thompson . It would certainly be an enter taining dinner. His contempt for authority, complete submer gence in counterculture, and the establishment of “gonzo journalism” would provide him with plenty of material to keep the conversation flowing. Just to be clear, I do not personally advocate all his lifestyle choices; I just like his writing (and I think a part of me still wants to be a journalist).

The Biophysicist Exploring Viscoelasticity: An Outreach Workshop for Middle and High School Students Tatiana Kardashina, Jessica A. Pallarez, Marat R. Talipov, Elba E. Serrano, and Borys Drach “Engaging students in hands-on activities and providing out of-school experiences have been shown to improve academic performance and spark interest in science. This workshop was for middle school and high school students as part of a summer program at a Hispanic-serving institution in south ern New Mexico. The goal was to foster interest and readi ness for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics careers and college entry. The workshop introduced students to viscoelasticity, a key concept in biophysics that describes the mechanical behavior of biological tissues, which is vital for understanding their structural and functional properties under various physical forces and conditions. The curriculum included a presentation, a discussion linking mechanical prop erties with biology, and hands-on experiments that demon strated viscoelastic principles. Analysis revealed that students could relate the concepts to their daily lives, gained a basic understanding of mechanical properties, and found at least one experiment enjoyable and interesting.”

Version of Record Published February 11, 2025 DOI: https:/doi.org/10.35459/tbp.2024.000278

October 2025

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