Biophysical Society Bulletin | September 2019

September 2019

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2019 Election Results Biophysical Society members elected Frances Separovic , University of Melbourne, to the office of President- Elect in this year’s elections. She will assume that office at the Business Meeting that will be held during the 2020 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting, February 15–19 in San Diego, California. She will begin her term as President in February 2021. Members elected to Council are Gilad Haran , Weizmann Institute of Science, Israel; Carolyn A. Moores , Birkbeck College, London; Francesca Marassi , Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Research Institute; and representative from industry Erin C. Dueber , Genentech. Each will serve a three-year term, beginning on February 18, 2020.

Frances Separovic

Inside Biophysicist in Profile

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Public Affairs

Thematic Meeting

Member Corner & Important Dates

Carolyn A. Moores

Francesca M. Marassi

Gilad Haran

Erin C. Dueber

Student Spotlight Career Development

The Society is indebted to all the excellent candidates who agreed to run for these positions. Thank you to all members who participated in the election by voting.

Grants and Opportunities

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Annual Meeting

Distinguished Service Award Renamed in Honor of Rosalba Kampman In recognition of her outstanding service as the Biophysical Society’s Executive Officer from 1998 through 2018, the Distinguished Service Award has been renamed the Rosalba Kampman Distinguished Service Award. The award, which was initiated in 1997, just prior to the beginning of Kampman’s tenure with the Society, honors service in the field of biophysics and contributions beyond achievements in research, and is presented biennially. Kampman’s dedication and contributions to BPS made the Society flourish and grow significantly, and BPS Council decided unanimously to rename this award in her honor. Kampman shares the honor with the devoted volunteers of BPS, saying “I truly believe that my efforts during the past 20 years with the Biophysical Society would have achieved nothing were it not for the tireless and generous work of the many members who volunteered their time on committees, councils, boards, Society publications, and meetings. I was always in awe of how much of their hearts they put into those efforts. It is their service that has made the Society and the field of biophysics thrive and grow. I am humbled and very honored to have my name associated with the Distinguished Service Award.” The Rosalba Kampman Distinguished Service Award will be presented to the selected awardee at the BPS 2020 Annual Meeting in San Diego, California, on February 17.

Publications

Communities & Outreach

Upcoming Events

Biophysicists in Profile

Swati Bhattacharya and Akash Bhattacharya Areas of Research Swati: Bottom-up, multi-level modeling of biomolecular systems Akash: Extending analytical ultracentrifugation methodology to the biological mesoscale

Institution Swati: Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay Akash: Beckman Coulter Life Sciences

At-a-Glance

Siblings Swati Bhattacharya and Akash Bhattacharya did not always expect that they would end up working in the same field, but when they both ended up studying biophysics, collaborating seemed like a perfect fit. They agree that the best part of working with a sibling is feeling unafraid to ask stupid questions.

Swati Bhattacharya

Akash Bhattacharya

Swati and Akash Bhattacharya’s parents, an English teacher and geologist, did their best to introduce the children to the fun of science when they were young, helping them to engage with the natural world and introducing them to concepts far beyond their level in school, “like fractions in kindergar-

me to take up biophysics,” she shares. “I worked on polymer physics for my PhD, and my work was primarily computation- al, but most of the group was actively engaged in biophysics and I was fascinated.”

The siblings’ paths diverged follow- ing their undergraduate years. When Akash was considering his path for graduate studies, “My sister point- ed out that I did have an aptitude for lab work and I should play to my strengths,” he says. “So that was what I did.” He started his PhD in the NMR spectroscopy lab of Anil Kumar at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc). “This was pure methodology work, long on spin physics, short on pipetting,” he explains. Following the advice of several bio-NMR scientists, including Siddharth Sharma , also at IISc, he moved to the University of Michigan for his PhD work, joining Erik Zuiderweg’s lab in the biophysics department. “Michigan was NMR heaven, with Zuiderweg as senior

ten,” says Swati. “I’m not sure how much of it actually penetrated, but we always knew that [father] was some sort of scientist and that was a marvelous thing to be.” By the time he was in sixth grade, Akash had put together a home chemistry lab. “Quite soon I was well on my way to making organic indicators and trying to electroplate the household crock- ery,” he says. For her part, Swati was attracted to mathematics from an early age, and once her physics lessons began in- corporating more math, her interests shifted toward the subject. She was accepted into the physics department of Presidency College, Calcutta, which was a dream come true. Akash found

Swati and Akash Bhattacharyn as children

spin prophet, Al-Hashimi as the up and coming RNA special- ist, and Ramamoorthy as the solid-state NMR expert,” Akash says. “This is where I became a card-carrying experimental biophysicist.” For her postdoc, Swati moved to University of Illinois, Urba- na-Champaign, where she worked on computational studies of nanopore sensors in the lab of Aleksei Aksimentiev . “That was when I was properly initiated into the world of biophys- ics,” she says. “We worked using molecular simulations on various aspects of bionanotechnology, particularly probing nanopore platforms for DNA sequencing. It was exhilarat-

himself following in his sister’s footsteps, and a year after she began her undergraduate studies, he joined her in the physics department at Presidency. “Presidency was awesome,” he shares. “The professors were great, but they did suffer from a regrettable tendency to wonder aloud if I was as capable as my sister. I was not.” During her undergraduate studies, Swati took several courses under Jayanta Bhattacharjee , which nudged her toward statis- tical physics. She moved to T. A. Vilgis ’ group at the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research in Mainz, Germany, for her PhD. “The exposure that I got in Mainz was what propelled

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Biophysicists in Profile

Officers President

David W. Piston President-Elect Catherine Royer Past-President Angela Gronenborn Secretary Erin Sheets Treasurer Kalina Hristova Council Zev Bryant Linda Columbus Michelle A. Digman Marta Filizola Teresa Giraldez Ruben Gonzalez, Jr. Joseph A. Mindell Anna Moroni Marina Ramirez-Alvarado Jennifer Ross David Stokes Pernilla Wittung-Stafeshede Biophysical Journal Jane Dyson Editor-in-Chief The Biophysicist Sam Safran Editor-in-Chief

ing to work on such ambitious projects while also using the biggest supercomputers in the world.” Following her postdoc, she started as an assistant professor at the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati, where her resources were diminished. “I had very few resources initially, and had to start from scratch. That provided me an opportunity to get into a whole new area of method development in computational biology,” she explains. “Faced with a seemingly unsurmountable problem, namely, how to access long timescale dynam- ics of biomolecules without access to massive supercomputers, I was forced to think deeper. While I had never worked with any method development group before, I became deeply interested in the field and started a whole new line of research. Eventually, as we got more resources, we were able to take up more com- plex problems.” During his postdoc at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, Akash picked up an important technique, with the help of two mentors. “I started using analytical ultracentrifugation (AUC) because of Professor [ Borries ] Demeler , who mentored me in this technique. AUC is a first principles hydrody- namic technique that has been around for 90 years, but has finally become easily accessi- ble due to modern supercomputing facilities. AUC has a huge dynamic range and is capable of characterizing the dimeric state of small proteins like insulin all the way to ginormous entities like intact viruses,” he says. “Professor Demeler is a world leader in this technique and it was honestly a bit of a coincidence that we happened to work on the same campus and that my actual postdoc mentor, Professor Dmitri Ivanov , supported me in both learning a new technique and then in burning up lots of resources—such as samples and my own time—in optimizing experiments so that we could study HIV biophysics using AUC. Actually, it is not coincidence, it is good fortune to have such supportive mentors.” During Swati’s postdoc years, the siblings had once again been on the same continent. “Prac- tically the same neighborhood—the Midwest,” says Swati. “So naturally, we visited each other several times in that period and discussions would often turn to work. We did not actually

plan to work together at that time. But later, when I became a faculty [member], it seemed the most obvious thing to do.” Their decision to collaborate did indeed seem like a natural choice, as their interests lined up and they had developed complementary skills. “Swati is skilled and experienced in MD techniques. I have always wanted to do some MD work on the various HIV related systems that I have worked on, but never had the time to train myself in it,” Akash explains. “Besides, it is not like just using a plate reader, learning MD takes an entire PhD worth of hard work. So, we decided to start working together.” Akash is a Senior Applications Engineer at Beckman Coulter Life Sciences, where he works on extending AUC methodology to better characterize aggregate formation in biologics, viral capsid genome load, liposome and exosome drug and other cargo loading, and nanoparticles. He moonlights with Swati’s Bhattacharya Lab at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. Her lab works on de- ciphering SAMHD1, an anti-HIV protein (the project Akash contributes to), and studies rare event acceleration techniques applied to biomolecular systems. “The gap between timescales accessible to biomolecular simula- tions and many relevant biological processes presents a major challenge. We are developing a suite of techniques to combine rare event ac- celeration strategies, such as using high-tem- perature simulations or steered molecular dynamics with kinetic network model (Markov State Model or MSM) building techniques to overcome the timescale challenge,” she explains. “We are also working on applying our methods to a variety of problems.” The two agree on the best part of working with your sibling, and perhaps more importantly, agree that they haven’t faced any particular challenges because of their familial relation- ship. As Akash puts it, “I can ask exceedingly stupid questions without embarrassment. That is one of the best things about working with your sibling. You are not going to sub- stantively change the opinion that your elder sister holds about you. That was formed and pretty much set in stone in the early ‘90s.”

Society Office Jennifer Pesanelli Executive Officer Newsletter Executive Editor Jennifer Pesanelli Managing Editor Beth Staehle

Production Catie Curry Ray Wolfe

The Biophysical Society Newsletter (ISSN 0006-3495) is published eleven times per year, January-December, by the Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, Maryland 20852. Distributed to USA members and other countries at no cost. Canadian GST No. 898477062. Postmaster: Send address changes to Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, MD 20852. Copyright © 2019 by the Biophysical Society. Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

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Public Affairs

Applications Are Open for the Biophysical Society 2020–2021 Congressional Fellowship Interested in using your science skills to inform science policy? Does spending a year working on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, helping develop policy sound exciting? The Biophysical Society’s Congressional Fellowship program is your opportunity to participate directly in the process of law-making that impacts how research is funded and regulated. This year-long opportu- nity provides fellows a chance to utilize their science knowledge to inform the public policy process. Fellows will gain firsthand knowledge and experience on how Congress works, and participate in the esteemed AAAS Science and Technology Fellows program that provides ongoing training and networking opportunities during the fellowship year and beyond. Visit the website for more details about the program or contact Leann Fox at lfox@biophysics.org or (240) 290-5606. The application deadline is December 20, 2019.

As Clock Ticks on FY2019 Senate Faces Full Slate of Appropriations By the time this edition of the BPS Bulletin arrives in your mail- boxes, we will be down to a matter of days for the Senate to take action on the 12 appropriations measures sent over by the House of Representatives before the fiscal year ends on September 30. Let’s first go back to where things were left prior to August’s five week in-district work period. White House officials and congres- sional leaders have agreed to a two-year deal to raise the budget caps by $321 billion and suspend the debt ceiling until July 2021; the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2019 also includes $77 billion in offsets, which will be achieved through increased fees and an extension of cuts toMedicare and other nonexempt mandatory programs. Now that a deal has been reached on budget caps, the House will need to adjust their spending proposals to be in compliance with the agreements, which for non-defense discretionary spending is approximately $15 billion less than the level used to write the spending bills. Next, Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Richard Shelby will set his cap allocations during August with work on the first appropriations package expected during the week of September 12. It is anticipated that Departments of Labor and Health and Human Services, which includes funding for the National Institutes of Health, will be first on deck, but rumors are circulating that it could be paired up with the Department of Defense spending bill similar to last year.

Bipartisan Bill Calls for Public-Private Effort to Address Foreign Threats to Science Research On July 16, Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced the Secure American Research Act of 2019 (S. 2133). The bill tasks the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy with establishing an interagency Secure Research Working Group to coordinate information shar- ing between agencies, the private sector, and academia to improve understanding and address the threats to research from foreign espionage and theft. The interagency group would also be required to set cybersecurity policy standards for institutions that receive federal grants or have cooperative agreements. NIH Issues New Fetal Tissue Restrictions The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued strict new rules for funding of fetal tissue research on July 26. The new policy—which will go into effect on September 25—includes new requirements for grant applicants, including providing a detailed justification why alternative methods cannot be used to accomplish the same research goals and proving that a woman has consented to donate the tissue for research. The scientific research community continues to decry the new restrictions and the damaging effect they will have on bio- medical research.

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Public Affairs

Around theWorld Mexican President Eases Up on Researchers’ Travel Rules

Democratic Lawmakers Seek Answers on Fetal Tissue Research Restriction Following an outcry from the scientific research community on the decision by the Department of Health and Human Services to discontinue intramural fetal tissue research by the federal government and limit funding opportunities for researchers, two high-ranking Democrats are looking for an- swers. House Committee on Oversight and Reform Chairman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Ranking Member Patty Murray (D-WA) sent a letter to Health and Human Services Secre- tary Alex Azar asking for internal documents relating to the agency’s decision-making process. With no other adequate scientific alternative to fetal tissue for biomedical research currently available, the department’s decision threatens to interfere with important research and prioritizes ideology at the expense of scientific advancement. The letter further states that there have been no claims of improper conduct by researchers who use the tissue and points out that this deci- sion would cancel more than $100 million in federal funding on fetal tissue research. Bipartisan Genome-Editing Resolution Introduced in the Senate In the wake of the announcement earlier this year that a geneticist gene-edited two human embryos and potentially a third, a bipartisan group of Senators have introduced a resolu- tion, S Res 275, calling for international ethical standards for gene-editing research. While not binding by law, the resolu- tion put forth by Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Jack Reed (D-RI) express opposition to experiments in China using genome-edited human embryos in pregnan- cies. Further, S Res 275 supports an international commission on genome editing convened by the National Academies and the Royal Society, and encourages the Secretary of State to work with other nations and international organizations to “forge an international consensus regarding the limits of ethical clinical use of genome-edited human embryos.”

In early May, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador announced austerity measures on international travel for scientists and deep cuts to research budgets. The austerity measures were implemented as part of a presidential initia- tive to rid the government of corruption and slash excess gov- ernment spending. Just over a month later, Mexico’s National Council of Science and Technology backtracked on the approv- al requirement for scientists so long as researchers were not in “command and liaison positions.” With the budget austerity measures remaining intact—deep cuts to research budgets, decreasing funds for equipment maintenance, gasoline to collect field samples, and even the use of electricity inside research facilities—the change in travel approval measures has done little to assuage concerns among researchers on the future of science in the country. Sweden Passes Law for National ResearchMisconduct Agency In response to several high-profile incidents, Swedish Parlia- ment has taken steps to address issues of scientific miscon- duct. Parliament enacted a new law on June 18 to formally create the Research Misconduct Board to oversee cases of misconduct from public higher education institutions, central government agencies, municipalities, county councils, and private education providers. Currently, institutions investigate allegations internally, which can lead to cases not being treat- ed fairly or lack of transparency. Beginning in January 2020, the new government agency will handle all allegations of serious research misconduct to standardize investigations— as different universities may disagree on what falls under misconduct—and eliminate potential conflicts of interest within the institutions.

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Thematic Meeting

Revisiting the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology at the Single-Molecule Level Lima, Peru | July 18–21, 2019

Some of the leading scientists in single-molecule biophysics are originally fromSouth America, and have trained (and continue training) other South American biophysicists in their USA-based laboratories. Many of these trainees now lead their own labora- tories in different parts of the world. Noteworthy, ten years ago, the first laboratory in Latin America devoted to single-molecule biophysics was installed in Peru, and a few years later a second laboratory was installed in Chile, both thanks to the support of Carlos Bustamante fromUniversity of California Berkeley. To- gether, these events have contributed to build a small but active community of South American single-molecule biophysicists, which continues to grow and obtain international relevance while establishing solid collaboration networks between the northern and southern hemispheres. A product of this collaboration is the Biophysical Society Themat- ic Meeting that took place July 18-21 in Lima, Peru, which was organized on the initiative of a group of Peruvian biophysicists some of them residing in the USA, together with scientists from Argentina, Chile, and the USA. This event took place at Universi- dad de Ingeniería y Tecnología (UTEC) with support fromCONCY- TEC, INS, ONI, ZEISS, IUBMB, Beckman Coulter, Lumicks, Chroma, Chilean Society of Biochemistry and ACS. The National Science Foundation provided travel grants for USA-based researchers, while IUPAB supported the attendance of South American stu- dents from the POSLATAMprogram. This meeting covered recent discoveries produced by single-molecule tools in DNA replication, transcription, translation, protein folding/degradation, and other processes associated to the central dogma of molecular biology. The 121 attendees to this conference enjoyed 32 lectures, 60 posters ( Biophysical Journal sponsored 4 poster awards), and 17 flash talks, bringing together well-recognized scientists of the global single-molecule community and experts from related

fields—theoreticians, computational biologists, fluorophore/dye chemists. This marked diversity of fields and nationalities (16 countries) contributed to establish a truly international multidisci- plinary and inspiring environment. In addition, the attendees en- joyed social and cultural activities that Lima offers as the gastro- nomic capital of Latin America, and the world-heritage sites from pre-Columbian, Inka empire, and Spanish colonial eras located in multiple parts of the city. As part of the meeting two social events encouraged the participants tomeet researchers fromdifferent parts of the globe while enjoying Peruvian food, pisco sours, folk- loric dances, and a nice view of the Pacific Ocean. This event—which is the first of its type to be held in Latin America—showed that the global single-molecule community is as vibrant as ever, and demonstrated that Peru and neighboring countries are ideal places (for scientific and touristic reasons) to host and organize these meetings at the highest level. For many of the attendees this was their first time in Latin America, and they were very impressed by the quality of the organization and the scientific program. Because of the unexpected success and attention of this BPS Thematic Meeting in Lima, the organizing committee* has plans to replicate it every two years in different parts of South America. In fact, plans are underway for a future meeting in Argentina, Chile, or Peru in 2021. * Carlos Bustamante (University of California at Berkeley, USA); Daniel Guerra (Cayetano Heredia University, Peru); Victoria Guixé (University of Chile); Rodrigo Maillard (Georgetown University, USA); Edward Málaga-Trillo (Cayetano Heredia University, Peru); Lía Pietrasanta (University of Buenos Aires, Argentina); Piere Rodri- guez-Aliaga (Stanford University, USA); Julio Valdivia (Universidad de Ingeniería y Tecnología, Peru); Christian A.M. Wilson (University of Chile, Chile).

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Member Corner

On The Move Scott Blanchard has moved his lab fromWeill Cornell Medicine in New York City to the Department of Structural Biology at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital inMemphis, Tennessee. Andrew Feig has moved fromWayne State University to Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) to serve as a program director. Jennifer Ross has moved fromher position as a Professor at University of Massachusetts at Amherst to Syracuse University.

Jesse Silverberg has moved fromHarvard University/Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering to serve as CEO and Research Director at Multiscale Systems, Inc. Eric Sundberg is moving fromUniversity of Maryland School of Medicine to serve as Professor and Chair of the Department of Biochemistry at Emory University School of Medicine. Seth H. Weinberg is moving fromhis Assistant Professor position at Virginia Commonwealth University to an Associate Professor position at Ohio State University.

Student Spotlight Hadeel Khamis

Technion Institute of Technology, Department of Physics As you move forward in science, what type of research do you see yourself doing? Why? As I move forward in science, I see myself progressing as a multidisciplinary researcher combining two fields of interest: physics and biology. I would like to use my knowledge and experience in physics to eluci- date the mechanism in which different proteins interact with DNA to regulate gene expression using single molecule techniques. Hopefully, one day we can fully understand how genetic information is encoded and processed in the cell.

Hadeel Khamis

Members in the News

Five Society members were honored with the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers:

Lynette Cygelski

Edward O’Brien

Padmini Rangamani Rebecca Schulman Catherine Weisz

Lynette Cygelski , Stanford University and Society member since 2002; Edward O’Brien , Pennsylvania State University and Society member since 2010; Padmini Rangamani , University of California San Diego and Society member since 2010; Rebecca Schulman , Johns Hopkins University and Society member since 2014; Catherine Weisz , National Institutes of Health and Society member since 2007.

Three Society members were named both Astronaut Scholars and Barry Goldwater Scholars:

Two Society members were named Barry Goldwater Scholars:

Claire Evensen

Steven Fried

Kathy Le

Christianne Chua Joseph Tibbs

Claire Evensen , University of Wisconsin - Madison and Society member since 2018; Steven Fried , University of Arizona and Society member since 2017; Kathy Le , Johns Hopkins University and Society member since 2017.

Christianne Chua , The George Washington University and Society member since 2019; Joseph Tibbs , University of Northern Iowa and Society member since 2017.

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Career Development

How to Better Mentor Your Students Mentoring is a critical part of science, career development, and profession- al success. The funny thing is, most scientists spend the majority of their years training to perform scientific research before beginning to manage a laboratory and mentor students. The details and complexities of quality

different publishing, fellowship, and presentation opportuni- ties; and outline classes, reading, and other engaging learning tasks along the way. Although, it’s important to remember that your experiences and goals may be different and what worked for you may not be the same as what works for your student—even if you are an early career faculty member that fondly remembers your time in graduate school like it was only yesterday. Another component for mentoring my students that I find helpful is the use of online tools to create and evaluate an individual development plan during our annual reviews (such as myIDP). These tools provide a framework that helps us get on the same page about prior successes and challenges, and then develop an executable plan to build and improve throughout the coming year. There are a number of addi- tional resources for learning about scientific mentoring that cover every stage of a career, and most of the best are freely available from HHMI, Burroughs Wellcome Fund, AAAS, the National Academy of Sciences, Nature , and Science . An easy place to start identifying these resources is a web search for “scientific mentoring” or “scientific mentorship,” or visit the Career Resources page on the BPS website. Mentoring can be difficult, but don’t be too critical of yourself. Learning how to become an excellent mentor takes life-long learning, inten- tional engagement in the practice, and affording yourself the time to reflect upon successes and failures you’ve learned from your students throughout your career. — Bertrand C.W. Tanner Washington State University

mentoring may be natural to some people, but need to be developed by most. Fortunately, there are career development workshops, blogs, books, and other resources available at nearly all universities to help us become better mentors. An effective mentor comes in many forms, and typically, each student needs to be mentored differently to help them identify their career goals and start to build a pathway towards scientific success. Some students need more feedback and attention, and others need more freedom and enthusiastic advice. Important characteristics of healthy mentoring are open communication, mutual respect, and honesty. These attri- butes sound simple, but are critical pieces of any successful relationship—especially the mentor-mentee relationship as a student treks the torturous path of a graduate degree. Frank discussions (early and often) about career goals, long- term employment directions, and the skillset that one needs to master to attain these goals creates a tangible pathway towards success. As a mentor, you know a lot more about science, career planning, academic and industrial research than your student does because you have more experience planning and navigating a scientific career. Thus, you know how to guide them towards productivity; inform them about Grants & Opportunities NAS Award in Molecular Biology This award recognizes a recent notable discovery by a young scientist (under age 45). The award is presented with a $25,000 prize. Deadline: October 7, 2019 Website: http:/www.nasonline.org/programs/awards/ molecular-biology.html

Pradel Research Award This award is presented annually to recognize a mid-career neuroscientist whose work is making major contributions to our understanding of the nervous system. The award is presented with a $50,000 research award, which is designated to an institution of the recipient’s choice, to support neuroscience research. Deadline: October 7, 2019 Website: http:/www.nasonline.org/programs/awards/ pradel-research-award.html

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Career Development

Call for BPS Student Chapters Are you a mentor to biophysics students who have leadership potential? Are you a biophysics student interested in growing your educational and career opportunities? If either answer is yes, you can help organize a Biophysical Society Student Chapter. BPS Student Chapters support students in their studies, deliver resources and tools to help with their research, and provide opportunities for students to succeed in a career in biophysics. Many of the student chapters are heavily involved in their com- munities and empower the next generation with outreach efforts in youth education. They serve to their communities and help disseminate the knowledge of biophysics. If there is a biophysics club at your institution, we encourage you to join and partici- pate. If your school does not yet have a chapter, we invite you to consider establish- ing one through the BPS Student Chapter Program. Chapters will need a sponsor but then are managed for and by the students. Student Chapters provide many benefits for students, such as: • Engaging with fellow students and peers; new contacts and friends • Developing leadership skills • Broadening the knowledge in biophysics and other areas of science • Sharpening professional skills • Learning how to pursue a career path • Collaborating with members • Accessing resources and support from BPS APPLY TODAY!

The Biophysical Society is grateful to its 2019 Industry Partners.

GOLD SILVER

Chapters may be formed within a single institution, or regional chapters may be developed between multiple institutions. Approved chapters will receive $200 in reimbursable expenses to assist with getting started, along with upcoming special opportunities for chapter officers and members at future Biophysical Society meetings. Consider applying for a student chapter at your institution. Applications will be accepted through November 15, 2019.

For more information, please visit biophysics.org/student-chapters.

For Industry Partner Membership information, contact alevine@biophysics.org.

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Annual Meeting

Present Your Research Submitting an abstract to the BPS Annual Meeting benefits you, your lab or institution, and the biophysics community. Reach more than 6,500 researchers in biophysics from around the world. Be designated as one of the nearly 800 poster presentations held each day of the meeting or be considered for one of the more than 500 oral presentation

Thank you to our sponsors: Beckman Coulter Life Sciences Bruker Corporation Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC Chroma Technology ELEMENTS SRL HORIBA Scientific Leica Microsystems LUMICKS

slots in platform sessions. Benefits to You: Professional Development. Enhance your CV as a presenting author. Publication Credit. Have your accepted abstract published and included in a supplement to Biophysical Journal . A Visible Platform. Submitting your abstract by the October 1 deadline grants you the opportunity to be considered for one of the more than 500 oral presentation slots in platform sessions. Strategic Connections. Increase your vis- ibility and leadership potential by meeting other leading experts from around the world. Make a Difference. Enrich the experience of attendees and contribute to the sharing of ideas that is the basis of the biophysics community.

Benefits to Your Lab or Institution:

Shared Knowledge. Bring the ideas and methods you learn back to your home in- stitution, along with valuable, constructive feedback on your presented research. Increased Visibility. Gain exposure for your organization and funding institutions. New Collaboration. Find opportunities to collaborate with other labs and leading researchers. Benefits to the Biophysics Community: Industry Knowledge. Continue to build a growing body of useful, practical solutions to problems and research studies. Idea Contributions. Enrich the experience of attendees and contribute by sharing ideas .

Mad City Labs Mizar Imaging Molecular Devices

Nanion Technologies Olympus America Inc Photonics Media Physics Today Sophion Bioscience A/S

Sutter Instrument Wyatt Technology

BPS Annual Meetings helped me meet and connect to other researchers in our field, start new collaborations, while providing a great opportunity to meet and discuss data and findings with previous collaborators. —Parisa Asghari University of British Columbia

Want information on how to choose your abstract category and presentation type for the Annual Meeting? See the September 17, 2018, blog post by David W. Piston , Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis at www.biophysics.org/blog/acat/1/date/17-9-2018

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Annual Meeting

Student Research Achievement Awards The Student Research Achievement Award (SRAA) competition provides students the opportunity to present their poster to senior researchers in their field. If you are a student presenting a poster, this is an excellent opportunity to hone your presen- tation skills. If you are a faculty member, please encourage your students attending the Annual Meeting to register for the competition. The 2020 SRAA Poster Competition will take place at the San Diego Convention Center at 6:00 PM on Sunday, February 16. In order to participate, students must submit their abstract by the October 1 deadline and apply for the SRAA Competition by October 3, 2019. For more information and to apply online, visit www.biophysics. org/2020meeting/awards-competitions/poster-competitions. If you have additional questions, email sraa@biophysics.org. Travel Awards Looking for funding to present your research at the Annual Meeting? BPS provides Travel Awards for members who are students, postdoctoral researchers, and scientists of all career levels to recognize excellence in biophysics and promote greater interaction among biophysicists throughout the world. Awards range in size, depending on travel distance to the Annual Meet- ing, up to a maximum of $750. Members from all over the world may apply, including those living in the San Diego area. To ensure that the award recipients reflect the diversity of Society membership, judging is conducted by members of the Committee for Inclusion and Diversity (CID), the Committee for Professional Opportunities for Women (CPOW), the Education Committee, and the Membership Committee. Those from communities underrepresented in science are en- couraged to apply. Applicants must submit their abstract by the October 1 deadline and apply for Travel Awards by October 3, 2019.

Undergraduate Poster Award Competition The Undergraduate Poster Award Competition provides students the opportunity to polish their presentation skills by participating in the competition and being recognized for high quality undergraduate research. Students are judged on the quality and scientific merit of their research, knowledge of the research problem, contribution to the project, and overall presentation of the poster. Judges look for students to present a clearly stated question, hypothesis, results, and conclusions. The Undergraduate Poster Award Competition will take place on Saturday, February 15, 2020, 3:00PM – 5:00PM. For more information and to apply online, visit https:/www.bio- physics.org/2020meeting/awards-competitions/poster-compe- titions. Application deadline: January 8, 2020.

I have a very high opinion of the BPS Annual Meeting – a highlight of my career. I have been very proud to be able to present as an early-stage investigator and also to have my colleagues present our work. —Hugues Abriel, Universitat Bern

biophysics.org/ 2020meeting

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Publications

Know the BJ Editor Philip Biggin University of Oxford

first-hand. In this tale of woe, anyone who expressed skepticism was fired rather than being respected as a principled researcher. To their credit, many scientists left when they realized what was going on, but it still amazed me how many people tolerated the abuse within the company. Anyone considering working for a biotech should read this! How do you stay on top of all the latest developments in your field? Staying on top of developments seems to get increasingly difficult as the sheer volume of reported research is rising rapidly and not necessarily in a good way. There is one tool I tend to rely on a lot these days and that is Feedly. I like how it presents articles and titles, allowing a reasonably quick scan by eye, in the same way we used to browse tables of contents in the library. I find that useful for picking up things that I otherwise might miss with, for example, more targeted PubMed searches. Twitter can also be useful in that way. At- tending relevant conferences is another excellent way to keep informed of important developments. I don’t manage to get to as many conferences as I would like, but of course, I always try to make the Biophysical Society Annual Meeting!

Editor, Channels and Transporters

Philip Biggin

What have you read lately that you found really interesting or stimulating? I am currently reading Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup by John Carreyrou . It is the true story of Thera- nos, the blood-testing start-up founded by Elizabeth Holmes that claimed to be able to do a wide variety of tests from a single prick of blood. The revelations are both fascinating and horrifying at the same time. It is absolutely astonishing that so many high-profile and well-educated people bought into what turned out to be complete nonsense. As scientists, we tend to be skeptical unless we see the proof of a claim Peer ReviewWeek Pays Tribute to Quality in Peer Review Peer Review Week is celebrating its fifth anniversary on September 16–20. This international event was created to showcase reviewers and editors, promote best practices and acknowledge the essential role reviewers play helping journals publish papers of scientific excellence. What began as a brainstorming conversation between ORCID and AAAS in 2014, has grown into an annual celebration filled with webinars, interviews, and in-person events. This year’s theme is “Quality in Peer Review,” with all discussions exploring the challenges reviewers and editors face as they strive to maintain the standards of excellence in scientific publishing.

In honor of Peer Review Week, Biophysical Journal would like to extend a thank you to every reviewer who has served the journal. We would not be able to continue our tradition of publishing the highest quality articles on modern biophysics without the tireless efforts of our reviewers and editors. To see a list of reviewers from January through April 2019, visit cell.com/biophysj/ home and scroll down to the Events and Announcements section.

NOWACCEPTING SUBMISSIONS

Accepted articles will be published at no charge if submitted prior to January 1, 2020. For additional information about article types, Instructions to Authors, and to submit, visit www.thebiophysicist.org.

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Publications

Biophysical Journal Sponsors Poster Competition in Lima, Peru Congratulations to winners of the Biophysical Journal Poster Competition held in conjunction with the recent BPS Thematic Meeting “Revisiting the Central Dogma of Molecular Biology at the Single-Molecule Level.” The winners were selected from 32 competition entries by a committee of six judges. The journal sponsors the poster competitions to support the work of young researchers, particularly those who might not al- ways have an opportunity to attend large conferences such as the BPS Annual Meeting. The winners receive a certificate and a monetary award. Student Awards Matthew T. Halma , University of Alberta Complex Dynamics under Tension in a High-Efficiency Frameshift Stimulatory Structure Luka Robeson , Universidad de Chile Postdoc Award Xiaoli Weng , Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Spatial Organization of RNA Polymerase and its Relationship with Transcription in E. coli

Exploring the Interaction between the Signal Peptide for Reticular Translocation and the Sec61 Translocon using Force Spectroscopy at the Single-Molecule Level Robert P Sosa , University of California - Berkeley DNA Wrapping in Open Transcription Initiation Complexes is the Major Component of their Stability

Principles of Protein–Protein Association Harold P. Erickson Department of Cell Biology, Duke University

Protein–protein associations are fundamental to biological mechanisms, creating a need for a book that covers the basic principles of protein–protein association. This book has been developed from lectures given to graduate students in cell and molecular biology. The general principles are accompanied by guided reading of informative classic papers. This book should be useful for faculties organizing similar classes, and also for students and researchers who wish to learn on their own. To obtain this book, visit https:/ iopscience.iop.org/book/978-0-7503-2412-0.pdf

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Communities & Outreach

Subgroups Membrane Transport

Figure 1. Molecular simulations from the Grosman lab of pen- tameric ligand-gated ion channels (pLGICs) revealed the confor- mation of charged side chains in the selectivity filter matters for charge-sign discrimination. A common challenge for membrane proteins is interpreting pairwise distance distributions obtained from spectroscopic data in the context of known structures. Members of the Forrest lab carried out a molecular dynamics simulation study using a recently developedmaximum-entropy method called ensem- ble-biasedmetadynamics or EBMetaD (Pubmed: 26083917), which allows ranking of different crystal structures in terms of the likelihood that they reflect the conformation in the spectroscopic experiment. EBMetaD simulations of the sodium-coupled betaine transporter BetP with double-electron electron resonance data suggest, for example, that the binding site is exposed to the cyto- plasm in the presence of sodium (Pubmed: 30728216).

The Membrane Transport Subgroup saw a healthy increase of members in the last year. This increase is palpable—we had a significantly larger audience during the annual symposium and the business meeting afterward. The subgroup has 213 regular members, 60 postdoctoral members, 138 student members, and 9 emeritus members. Many thanks to all of you who signed up. Starting in 2020, all subgroups will have a half-day symposiumon Saturday during the Annual Meeting. The Ion Channels, Recep- tors and Transporters Subgroup (formerly Molecular Biophysics) will hold its symposium in the morning of February 15, 2020; we will hold our symposium in the afternoon. The two subgroups will then alternate between the morning and afternoon slots in subsequent years. Although a morning symposiumwouldmean traveling on a Friday, we hope that this arrangement will help increase participation in both symposia. We would like to use the BPS Bulletin as a platform to highlight works by our subgroupmembers, and we eagerly await sug- gestions from the subgroup. In this issue, we highlight recent publications by Claudio Grosman fromUniversity of Illinois at Urba- na-Champaign (Fig. 1), Lucy Forrest fromNIH/NINDS (Fig. 2), and Steve Long fromSloan Kettering Institute (Fig. 3). Molecular simulations from the Grosman lab revealed that, in pentameric ligand-gated ion channels (pLGICs), the conformation of charged side chains in the selectivity filter matters for charge- sign discrimination. Using structural models of anion-selective pLGICs, the authors found that, whereas some rotamers of the buried arginines at position 0’ confer high selectivity for anions, others support the permeation of cations and anions at similar rates or even allow the faster permeation of cations. Further- more, they found that modeling glutamates at position –1’––in- stead of the five native alanines––switches charge selectivity also in a conformation-dependent manner, with some glutamate rotamers being muchmore effective at conferring selectivity for cations than others.

Figure 2. Ensemble-biasedmetadynamics simulations from the Forrest lab allow ranking of different crystal structures according to the likelihood that they reflect the conformation in the spectro- scopic experiment, illustrated here for the sodium-coupled betain transporter, BetP. — Susan Rempe , Chair; Ming Zhou , Vice Chair; Lucie Delemotte , Secretary/Treasurer Numbers By the The BPS Find a Biophysicist (FaB) Network started in April 2018 and currently has 1,312 members. Connect with BPS

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Communities & Outreach

BPS-EBSA Student Poster AwardWinners The Biophysical Society was pleased to sponsor student poster awards at the recent Biophysics Congress in Madrid, Spain, July 20-24, 2019. This was the 12 th European Biophysical Societies Association (EBSA) and 10 th International Conference on Biological Physics–International Union of Pure and Applied Physics (IUPAP) Biophysics Congress. This was also the sixth EBSA meeting at which BPS held this competition, with over 170 students participating this year. Twelve winners were selected to receive a $500 poster award and a complimentary membership to the Biophysical Society. The winners, along with their home institutions and poster titles, are listed below.

Valentin Dunsing , University of Potsdam, Germany Microviscosity of Bacterial BiofilmMatrix Characterized by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy and Single Particle Tracking Jan Ebenhan , Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany Measuring Protein Insertion Areas in Lipid Monolayers by Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy Mónica Gutiérrez-Salazar , University of San Buenaventura Cali, Spain Photoswitchable Hydrophobic Helical Peptide Shows Slow and Multiexponential Folding Kinetics in POPC Membranes Sandra Ionescu , University of Oxford, England Protein Sensors Screened from a Genetically Engineered Nanopore Library Alejandro Melero Carrillo , Medical Research Council Laboratory of Molecular Biology, England Membrane Curvature Generation by COPII Proteins Resolved by Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy Tetiana Mukhina , Institut Laue–Langevin, France Out-of-Equilibrium Active Membranes: Incorporation of Bacteriorhodopsin in a Floating Lipid Bilayer

Mónica Muñoz-Úbeda , Complutense University of Madrid, Spain Gemini/DOPE/PEGylated-based Lipoplexes for the Efficient Expression of Opa1 Mitochondrial Protein in In Vitro and In Vivo Experiments Sara Roig , Radboud Institute for Molecular Life Sciences, The Netherlands TRPV5 – Calmodulin Interaction: Surfaces Involved and Calcium Dependency Mathias Schenkel , Technical University of Dresden, Germany Molecular Insights into the Structural Effects of Pathogenic CFTR Mutations and the Action of a Pharmacological Corrector Till Siebenmorgen , Technical University of Munich, Germany Evaluation of Predicted Protein–Protein Complexes by Binding Free Energy Simulations Ho Wah Siu , University of Konstanz, Germany Design of PolyQ Peptides to Study the Dynamics of Glutamine Interactions Spectroscopically Kevin Sule , University of Calgary, Canada Toxic and Essential Metals Influence Membrane Packing and Size of Biomimetic Biological Membranes

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