Biophysical Society Bulletin | September 2024

September 2024

THE NEWSLETTER OF THE BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY

2024 Election Results The Biophysical Society members elected Karen G. Fleming , Johns Hopkins University, USA, to the office of President-Elect in this year’s elections. She will assume that office during the 2025 Biophysical Society Annual Meeting in Los Angeles in February 2025. She will begin her term as President in February 2026. Samantha Harris , University of Arizona, USA, was re-elected as BPS Treasurer. She will begin her second four-year term on July 1, 2025. Members elected to Council are Silvia Cavagnero , University of Wisconsin, USA; Theanne Griffith, University of California, Davis, USA; Ryota Iino , Institute for Molecular Science, Japan; and Renae Ryan , University of Sydney, Australia. Each will serve a three-year term beginning in February 2025. 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.

Karen G. Fleming

Samantha Harris

Renae Ryan

Silvia Cavagnaro

Theanne Griffith

Ryota Iino

Get Involved.

The Biophysical Society provides many opportunities for members to get involved and give back to the biophysics community. To learn more about the different opportunities, please visit www.biophysics.org/get-involved.

Inside

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President’s Message Biophysicist in Profile

Career Development

Stay Connected with BPS

Member Corner Communities Important Dates

Public Affairs Publications Annual Meeting

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President’s Message

My Wish for the Biophysical Society If I had my wish, all biophysi cists—that is, all people who leverage expertise in physics to explain biology—would main tain lifetime membership in BPS! They would also regularly attend BPS-sponsored meetings and

The Society is its members! Together, we engage in critical thinking, we probe for intellectual honesty, and we deliberate on acceptable standards of scientific excellence and of ethical conduct, to define the culture in our community. We decide who among us should lead the Society, we determine who should represent and speak for us, and we influence who among us should be recognized for excellence, innovation, and service. I encourage you to consider renewing your mem bership annually and to consider yourself a proud lifetime member. Regular participation in BPS-sponsored meetings. Perhaps the most satisfying aspect of BPS membership is attending in-person meetings. It is something deeply inspirational and energizing to interact directly with like-minded people; that is, with people who, like you, believe that at this time in history, humanity can derive much critical value from science and a rigorous science education. People who, like you, are deeply committed to improving the human condition. Specifically, at the Annual Meeting, chances are you will cross paths with someone who is very familiar with your work, and with others who can introduce you to new areas of research or techniques. At Subgroup meetings and at posters, you are likely to encounter people who, like you, are convinced of the critical importance of 2-Å movement by Ala532 to the good of humanity, and who will commiserate about the unreasonable comments of your Review 3. But you also can be inspired by sweeping lectures and talks at the leading edge of science. I wrote in more detail about how the Annual Meetings are put together and I encourage you to consider organizing or attending a Thematic Meeting (www.biophysics.org/the matic-meetings#/) or BPS Conference (www.biophysics.org/ meetings-events/bps-conferences). If you are like me, deciding which conference to attend is important because your time is limited and because you are committed to reducing your carbon footprint. Choosing to attend BPS-sponsored conferences supports your science and your growth as a scientist. In addition, it provides many opportunities to shape the field and its culture, and to give back to the community. Engage often with BPS journals. BPS publishes three journals. Biophysical Journal is the flagship journal of the Society and boasts an archive of more than 60 years of quantitative re search. The latest content can be accessed online for free by members, via a subscription, or access to individual articles can be purchased. Biophysical Reports, an online gold open ac cess journal, publishes original biophysical research and satis fies the open access requirements of many funding agencies. Lastly, The Biophysicist publishes educational articles that are

would engage often with BPS journals! Every now and again they would also participate in governance, would volunteer to

Gabriela K. Popescu

organize small meetings, symposia, and round-table discus sions, and more generally would contribute in creative ways to benefit the community. Don’t get me wrong: as I wrote in more detail in earlier col umns, BPS is healthy and vibrant! It enjoys a strong contin gent of loyal members from across the globe, its meetings are well attended and brimming with exciting science, and its journals remain committed to publishing papers vetted with the highest quality of peer review. All I am saying is that we can do even better. Here is what I mean. Lifetime membership in BPS. As the President of BPS, I partic ipated recently in evaluating nominees for both BPS Awards and BPS Fellows. This is how I came to read more than 60 nomination packages. I was moved to see that many of the letter writers identified themselves with pride as “lifetime” members! Come to think of it, I too am proud to have been a member of BPS for more than 20 years (which qualifies as lifetime). And I understand the satisfaction that comes from having witnessed the Society change over a long period of time. For me, this thought also brought a deep appreciation of how my continuous connection with BPS contributed to my per sonal and professional growth. This was first by helping me to integrate in the field as a trainee, then by deriving support and recognition from the discipline as an independent scientist, and more recently by allowing me the privilege to help shape the future of the community as a leader. Lifetime membership also helps the Society in important ways. Most obviously, a large contingent of core regular members allows for more stable financial planning and more efficient resource allocation to maintain operations and achieve strate gic goals. Most of the Society’s expenditures are recurrent, and thus fluctuations in membership can be challenging. But, more importantly, a stable contingent of loyal and engaged mem bers enriches the community with the experience, expertise, and perspective to make value judgements and decisions that shape the field and set standards of excellence.

September 2024

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President’s Message

Officers President Gabriela K. Popescu President-Elect Lynmarie K. Thompson Past-President Taekjip Ha Secretary Teresa Giraldez Treasurer Samantha Harris Council Patricia Bassereau Margaret Cheung Martin Gruebele Taviare Hawkins Anne Kenworthy Syma Khalid Emmanuel Margeat Anita Niedziela-Majka Elizabeth Rhoades Tamar Schlick Valeria Vasquez Jing Xu Biophysical Journal Vasanthi Jayaraman Editor-in-Chief The Biophysicist Padmini Rangamani Editor-in-Chief Biophysical Reports

online and is also an open access journal that provides free access for all. It is important to know that all three are owned by BPS! First, this means that the Society, through its Publications Committee and Coun cil, recruits and appoints an editor-in-chief and an editorial board of experienced biophysicists with active independent research programs. In other words, active biophysicists have full intellectual oversight. They set the standards of rigor, excellence, innovation, and impact. There fore, the journals, through peer and editorial review and through the articles they publish, are critical instruments that further the BPS mission and its values of scientific excellence; integrity and transparency; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and community building. Recently, Council approved a new contract with Cell Press as the publishing partner for Biophysical Journal and Biophysical Reports , which includes a minimum guaranteed reve nue and access to resources and technology to continue publishing the journals at the high est standards for an additional seven years. This means that a substantial portion of the

publication fees charged to authors return to the Society and are reinvested in programs that benefit its membership. In fact, revenue from Biophysical Journal represents a third of the entire annual budget of BPS. With this information in mind, I encourage you to submit to, review for, and volunteer to serve on the editorial board of the three BPS journals. By engaging regularly with BPS journals, you will not only further your career and expand your scientific horizon, but you will shape the breadth and depth of the science we publish. And you will help to maintain the standards of quantitative rigor and excellence that BPS and its journals are known for. In other words, if I had my wish, the Biophys ical Society would be THE community where biophysicists come to learn, develop, and grow, and THE community to which biophysicists give back their experience, talents, time, and energy. It would also be THE community we are most proud of, and THE community about which we

most often and most loudly brag. — Gabriela K. Popescu , President

Jörg Enderlein Editor-in-Chief

Society Office Jennifer Pesanelli Executive Officer Newsletter

BPS Supports Global Biophysics Gathering The International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB) in conjunction with the Biophysical Society of Japan hosted the 2024 IUPAB Congress at the Kyoto International Conference Center in late June. More than 1,900 people attended from 52 countries. The theme was “Rocking Out Biophysics,” and it was an amazing week of excel lent scientific talks, posters, and networking.

Executive Editor Jennifer Pesanelli Managing Editor John Long Production Ray Wolfe Meredith Zimmerman Proofreader/Copy Editor 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. Cana dian GST No. 898477062. Postmaster: Send address changes to Biophysical Society, 5515 Security Lane, Suite 1110, Rockville, MD 20852. Copyright © 2024 by the Biophysical Society. Darren Early Laura Phelan

BPS proudly sponsored Jerelle Joseph from Princeton University, USA, as a keynote speaker delivering her talk “Accurate models for interro gating and engineering biomolecular condensates.”

Jerelle Joseph speaks at the 2024 IUPAB Congress.

BPS also sponsored four student presentation awards and congratulates the following winners on their excellent presentations: Aylin Balmes and Hendrik von Eysmondt from the University of Tübingen, Germany; Nathan Nunes Evangelista from Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan; and Shufeng Zhao from the University of Tsukuba, Japan.

Printed in the United States of America. All rights reserved.

From left to right, Hendrik von Eysmondt, Aylin Balmes, Nathan Nunes Evangelista, and BPS Executive Officer Jennifer Pesanelli.

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Biophysicist in Profile

Emmanuel Margeat Area of Research Single-molecule fluorescence to study the structure and dynamics of membrane proteins

Institution Centre de Biologie Structurale, Montpellier, France

At-a-Glance

Emmanuel Margeat, Group Leader at the Centre de Biologie Structurale in France, was drawn to sci ence from an early age and has built a successful career in large part by embracing collaboration and new techniques—or new applications of existing techniques. He believes in the importance of giving back to the biophysics community, currently serving as inaugural Chair of the Biophysical Society’s newly established Committee on Sustainability.

Emmanuel Margeat

As far back as he can recall, Emmanuel Margeat was fascinated by science. As a child growing up in the small town of Tarbes, France, close to the Spanish border, he read books about as tronomy, geology, and computer science in his spare time. “I was probably the first kid in my hometown to have a personal computer—with 4K memory, running on tapes—because my father was a TV reseller and saw the opportunity to sell the first computers in his store,” he remembers. There was no university in Margeat’s hometown, so at age 17 he moved to Toulouse, France to pursue higher education at the University Paul Sabatier. He had trouble deciding wheth er to study chemistry, astrophysics, or computer sciences, eventually settling on physical chemistry. At the end of his undergraduate years, he was not sure what his next steps would be. He shares, “I was hesitant on what to do next, but by chance, I trained in a lab that was doing some biology. I discovered that my skills in physical chemistry—especially in spectroscopy and crystallography—could be useful to study biological processes at the molecular level. I borrowed a cou ple of books on structural biology at the library. A few months later, I started a graduate program at the University of Montpellier in Structural Biology. There, a new lab called the “Centre de Biologie Structurale” was being set up. I started working with atomic force microscopy and fluorescence and met Catherine Royer , the future president of the Biophysical Society, who had just moved to set up her group in France. I became her first PhD student in France.” He attended his first BPS Annual Meeting in 2000 as a PhD student, which was an opportunity to make connections and get to know people. He shares, “I remember finishing the poster session totally exhausted, having talked for two hours non-stop. It gave me confidence in my work and convinced me to look for a postdoc position later in the United States, and the science I saw started fueling my interest for sin gle-molecule experiments.”

Margeat notes, “During my PhD, thanks to the connections my adviser had in the United States, I had the chance to travel to the United States to spend a couple of weeks at the Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics in Urbana to work with Enrico Gratton and his group. We did FCS [fluorescence cor relation spectroscopy] experiments on estrogen receptor, the protein I was working on during my PhD.” He explains, “It was my first experience with research in the United States and with single-molecule microscopy as well. I discovered that a microscope could not only produce beautiful images, but also provide quantitative information about a biological system as well. It pushed me to look for a postdoctoral position in the United States, and preferably in the field of single-molecule biophysics, which was blooming at the time.” He joined the lab of Shimon Weiss at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, CA, which relocated to the University of California Los Angeles shortly thereafter. He says, “I was working on a collaborative project with Richard Ebright from Rutgers University that aimed originally at look ing at DNA rotation during transcription using single-molecule fluorescence polarization. That proved extremely challenging, and finally I learned to do single-molecule FRET [Förster-res onance energy transfer] on this system. Together with Achilles Kapanidis , who was a postdoc on the RNAP [RNA polymerase] project as well at the time, and other talented people in the group, we joined forces and managed to make a decisive con tribution to understanding the mechanisms of transcription initiation.” After his postdoc, Margeat returned to France and a Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique research position, with the idea of establishing a group applying single-molecule FRET to biological systems. He explains, “I started a couple of projects related to transcription termination, focusing on transcription antiterminators, and the helicase Rho. But I wanted to bring the technologies I had in hand toward new

September 2024

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Biophysicist in Profile

biological systems, and preferably toward systems that can be handled and imaged more easily in live cells. I therefore started to work on membrane proteins and started new collaborations: first within my institute, with Pierre Emman uel Milhiet, with whom we pioneered single-particle tracking experiments on tetraspanins; and then with Jean Philippe Pin across the street and Claus Seidel in Dusseldorf, Germany, with whom we published the first study of the structural dy namics of a G-protein coupled receptor using single-molecule FRET.” Now, Margeat is a group leader at the Centre de Biologie Structurale, where he started his career. In France, a research group typically involves several senior researchers with inde pendent, but interrelated research topics. He explains, “The group I co-supervise with Pierre Emmanuel Milhiet is called “Integrated biophysics of membranes” and comprises seven senior researchers. As the name says, we integrate several biophysical approaches toward the study of membranes and membrane proteins, such as single-molecule fluorescence of course, but also atomic force microscopy, NMR [nucle ar magnetic resonance], DNA origami, and cell biology. On my side, our most recent developments involve the use of unnatural amino acids, click chemistry, and multicolor FRET to study molecular systems of increasing complexity, such as metabotropic glutamate receptors heterodimers. In addition, in January 2024 I became director of the Centre de Biologie Structurale, which gathers around 10 research groups and 30 PIs [principal investigators] around structural biology, bio physics, and synthetic biology.” The biggest career challenge for Margeat has been to com pete at the highest level with research groups from other countries who, from his point of view, “seem to benefit from unlimited funding and the capacity to attract an extremely skilled workforce. To face this challenge and stay competitive, I chose first to identify a niche for which my skills could give

me a competitive edge. This was another argument to start working on membrane proteins, which require skills in sample preparation that were not necessarily mastered by the groups performing single-molecule fluorescence at the time, which were traditionally run by physicists. Second, I relied on what the French system has always promoted, i.e., collaborating and joining forces with other PIs in my institute and beyond.” In recent years, Margeat has been active in various leadership roles within BPS, including as a member of the Public Affairs Committee and Council. He says, “This has given me the opportunity to meet with my peers, who I admire scientifically and who share my vision of the importance of giving some of our time and energy to run scientific organizations such as BPS, as public service. The Biophysical Society allows us collectively to be stronger to promote our science, but also to carry a credible and impactful voice when talking to decision makers and the general public. In addition, as Chair of the newly created Committee on Sustainability, I find urgent and vital that we all think about some issues, like the way we do science and plan experiments, our topics of research, and the way we communicate and travel. I think we should try to align our professional practices with the objectives of sustainable development in general and take into account environmental issues in particular.” Outside of his research and service commitments, Margeat has in recent years developed a passion for astrophotography. He says, “I realized how easy it is to capture striking images of galaxies, star clusters, nebulae, or planets, with relatively lim ited equipment that you can have in your backyard—even if you live in a light-polluted area. The concepts and techniques of astrophotography are really connected to those I use every day in the lab, trying to image single molecules in my micro scopes: it is all about PSF [point spread function], signal to noise, and trying to catch the maximum number of photons!”

Premium Recruitment Special Looking to wrap up your hard-to-fill roles by the end of year? We are offering a premium recruitment special package to help successfully fill your open roles! This limited time package will include: • Job posting for 45 days • Job emailed to over 7,000 Biophysical Society Professionals • Job included in Biology Job Board Network

• Job remains high in search results • Access to resume bank for 45 days

The cost is $699 for members or $899 for non-members. The special will be running from September 1 through December 31, 2024, and offers more than $200 in savings! Post your ad today! www.biophysics-jobs.careerwebsite.com/employer/pricing/

September 2024

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Applications Are Open for the Biophysical Society 2025–2026 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 lawmaking that impacts how research is funded and regulated. This year-long op portunity 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 https:/www.biophysics.org/policy-advocacy/congressional-fellowship for more details about the program or contact Leann Fox at fellows@biophysics.org or (240) 290-5606. The application deadline is December 13, 2024.

Congress Returns to a Question of Will They or Won’t They on FY25 The House and Senate adjourned for the August in-district work period with two very different visions for the fiscal year 2025 (FY25) budget landscape. While the House has outlined primarily flat funding for most of the federally funded re search agencies, the Senate departed Washington, DC having approved a spending package that would show increases for research agencies using an emergency funding mechanism to get around the spending caps put in place by the Fiscal Responsibility Act. This sets up a familiar showdown between the two chambers and their respective Appropriations Committee Chairs, Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) and Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK). Despite gener ally bipartisan support in Congress for science funding, in re cent years the Democrat-controlled Senate has often backed higher spending levels than the Republican-controlled House for key research agencies, leading to sometimes thorny final negotiations. However, with the new fiscal year beginning on October 1 and the presidential election a little over a month later, it seems unlikely that we’ll see any resolution until November or December at the earliest. NSF Makes Major Changes to EPSCoR Grants Over the summer, the National Science Foundation (NSF) rolled out the first round of grants under its revised Estab lished Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) and has seen an influx of criticism and pushback for its efforts. EPSCoR, one of the longest running and politically

popular programs the agency has, was designed to send more funding to academic scientists in 28 small and mostly rural US states and jurisdictions. In 2022, Congress determined that the program wasn’t living up to its mandate. In response, NSF shifted the focus from grants given to large, statewide consortia to smaller awards that are open to any college, university, or nonprofit in an EPSCoR state. In May 2023, NSF announced the agency would phase out EPSCoR’s flagship program awards, in which a statewide con sortium of institutions can get a five-year, $20 million award for a cutting-edge research project that also helps expand a state’s economy and scientific workforce. Two programs of smaller awards would take the place of these Track 1 awards. One, called E-CORE (EPSCoR Collaborations for Optimizing Research Ecosystems), is aimed at improving science educa tion and workforce training across a state. The second, called E-RISE (EPSCoR Research Incubators for STEM Excellence), allows scientists to pursue a research topic in an area central to a state’s economy. The new E-CORE and E-RISE grants also do not require a 20% outside funding match that has long been a provision of Track 1 awards. States often provide matching funding that sup ports an EPSCoR coordinating office, which raises concerns about whether states will continue to contribute the same level of funding to support such efforts. While testifying in support of the fiscal year 2025 appropriations request for the agency, NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan faced sharp criticism from several senators representing EPSCoR states. The complaints ranged from potential office closures and staff layoffs, to insufficient notice to states to allow for preparation and adjustment, to gutting an effective program without consultation. It remains to be seen what action, if any, Congress will take.

September 2024

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Around the World Guidelines for Human Embryo Models Grown from Stem Cells Published in United Kingdom In July, a working group led by researchers at the University of Cambridge published a code of practice for studies using embryo models grown from stem cells (https:/www.repro. cam.ac.uk/scbemcode). The code of practice aims to remove long-standing ethical and legal ambiguities that have left sci entists unsure about the acceptable boundaries of their work. Stem-cell–based embryo models, which are used to study early developmental processes, share similarities with human embryos but do not fall under United Kingdom regulations governing the use of embryos in research. The new code of practice is the result of more than two years of consultations with researchers, lawyers, sociologists, bioethicists, groups such as the International Society for Stem Cell Research (ISSCR), and the general public. One of the group’s chief recommendations is to establish an oversight committee to review every research project that uses stem-cell–based embryo models. Made up of scien tists, legislators, sociologists, and bioethicists, the panel would consider the moral, social, and ethical implications of the research before deciding whether to give the go-ahead. The report refrains from putting a blanket limit on how long researchers can develop embryo models in the lab, consistent with ISSCR’s 2021 guidelines. The guidelines also urge sci entists to build public trust by being transparent about their research and sharing results.

Argentinian Researchers Continue to Struggle under New President Argentinian scientists are getting creative in their ongoing budget deficit under President Javier Milei , who took office eight months ago. Since taking office, Milei has aggressively cut government spending to revive the economy. Thus far, Milei has not followed through on a threat to close the Na tional Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina (CONICET), which employs the bulk of Argentina’s scientists and funds the daily operations of more than 280 research institutes. CONICET’s budget will fall by 25.5% this year; meanwhile, funding for the National Agency for the Promo tion of Research, Technological Development, and Innovation (Agencia I+D+i)—the second major funding agency in the country—is set to drop by 65.5%. Amid these ongoing funding issues and lack of a clear pathway forward, scientists have been working on creative measures to keep their research moving forward, such as repurposing old bottles, borrowing supplies and equipment, and analyzing old data instead of collecting new. Be an inspiration to your community and help change the lives of those interested in or studying science. Sign up to be a mentor, K-12 classroom visitor, speaker, science fair judge, or student chapter sponsor. Access to the network is free for all BPS members and non-members. Use Your Expertise to Make a Difference!

For more information, visit biophysics.org/find-a-biophysicist.

The Biophysical Society is grateful to its Industry Partners.

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

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Publications

Know the Editor Kanchan Garai

Peer Review Week Explores Challenges and Opportunities for Technology

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Associate Editor Biophysical Reports

Kanchan Garai

BPS, along with other societies, publishers, institutions, and re searchers, will once again cele brate the value of peer review to the academic community during the annual Peer Review Week. From September 23–27, there will be events and activities under the theme “Innovation and Tech nology in Peer Review.”

What are you currently working on that excites you? We are focused on uncovering the mechanisms of liquid-liq uid phase separation (popularly known as LLPS) of proteins. LLPS involves separation of biomolecules such as proteins and RNA into liquid droplets. It enables organization of cellular components without the need for membrane-bound compartments. It is crucial for normal cellular functions, such as gene expression regulation, signal transduction, and the formation of stress granules. However, LLPS can also lead to growth of abnormal protein aggregates, commonly known as amyloid fibrils. For instance, in Alzheimer’s disease, the tau protein—critical for stabilizing microtubules—can undergo LLPS, resulting in the formation of neurotoxic aggregates. We use single molecule techniques to study the process of LLPS and amyloid aggregation with single molecule sensitivity and resolution. Our goal is to understand the underlying pathways and to devise strategies to prevent the transition of the pro teins of interest from the soluble to the insoluble phase. What has been your biggest “aha” moment in science? A few years ago, we were trying to investigate interaction of lipids with amyloid-beta peptide, a small protein involved in Alzheimer’s disease. We tried various experiments but didn’t find any significant interaction. In the meantime, we built a total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscope to visualize and study growth of the aggregates, viz, amyloid fibrils starting from the soluble peptide. Once again, the lipids didn’t affect the growth of the fibrils. However, we started observing something entirely new: spherical liquid-like con densates of lipid-amyloid-beta complexes. This started a new direction of research in my lab.

Technology has changed the character of the peer review process enormously, with modern online systems allowing for rapid sharing of text, images, and data, as well as edits and reviewer feedback. Now technology has the potential to continue to streamline the peer review process, but it also has introduced additional challenges. Research integrity is a major concern, and publishers have to be aware of how authors might be using advances like AI in preparation of their articles. In turn, AI can be used to help identify problems with sub missions, including improper manipulation of images or data. There are also opportunities to achieve efficiencies in peer review if AI can be used to automate some administrative tasks so that reviewers and editors can concentrate more on the scientific content of submissions. BPS is grateful for the peer reviewers who give back to the biophysics community by using their expertise to help their fellow researchers to get their work ready for publication. They are a vital part of our journal publishing program. For more information about webinars and other activities during Peer Review Week, go to www.peerreviewweek.wordpress. com. Follow on social media using hashtags #PeerReview Week and #AIinPeerReview.

Numbers By the

The Biophysical Society has published more than 22,000 peer-reviewed research articles since Biophysical Journal was launched in 1960.

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Publications

Biophysical Reports Receives Its First Impact Factor Editor-in-Chief Jörg Enderlein and the editorial board of Biophysical Reports are pleased to announce that the journal has reached the milestone of receiving its first Impact Factor: 2.4! There are many ways to analyze the quality and success of a journal. Impact Factor is only one, but it reflects that a journal has established itself and is publishing work that is being recognized and cited by the community. We are proud of the journal’s development and would like to thank the authors who have submitted their work as well as the editors and reviewers who have provided a fast, rigorous, and fair peer review process. The journal was launched as a high-quality, forward-looking gold open access publishing option in 2021. Publishing in all disciplines encompassed by biophysics, with a particular emphasis on methods and techniques, as well as concepts and ideas that present major conceptual advances or represent new views on existing data and results, the journal has continued to build its reputation. It provides a venue for papers that are written for specialists as well as those written for the broader biophysics community. We look forward to watching Biophysical Reports grow in the future! Please consider submitting your latest research. For more information, go to www.biophysreports.org.

Editor’s Pick Biophysical Reports An efficient EPR spin-labeling method enables insights into conformational changes in DNA Melanie Hirsch, Lukas Hofmann, Idan Yakobov, Shirin Kahremany, Hila Sameach, Yulia Shenberger, Lada Gevorkyan-Airapetov, Sharon Ruthstein “The transcription process usually involves conformational changes in both the protein and DNA. Electron paramagnetic resonance stands out as a biophysical tool to investigate structural dynamics in macromolecules. Electron paramagnetic reso nance boasts several advantages: it does not require crystallization, thereby enabling the study of macromolecules in their native environments, and it is not limited by macromolecule size. Nevertheless, a notable drawback lies in the necessity of incor porating paramagnetic centers, such as spin labels. Spin labeling nucleotides poses a significant challenge, prompting the development of a simplified methodology presented here for efficient labeling of DNA sequences.” Version of Record Published June 28, 2024 DOI: https:/doi.org/10.1016/j.bpr.2024.100168

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Annual Meeting

Present Your Research! Submitting an abstract will benefit you in many ways. Be considered for one of the Symp Select speakers in one of the 20 symposia or as a Workshop Select speaker in one of the 4 workshops. There are also over 500 oral presentations in platform sessions and more than 600 poster presentations held each day of the meeting. You will be reaching more than 5,000 researchers in biophysics from around the world.

Thank you to our sponsors: APS Physical Review Journals Bruker Carl Zeiss Microscopy LLC Chroma Technology

Top Reasons to Submit an Abstract before the October 1 deadline: Present

Cube Biotech Depixus SAS Fidabio Leica Microsystems LUMICKS Mad City Labs Inc Malvern Panalytical Nanion Technologies Sophion Bioscience A/S

Constructive Feedback Get insightful reactions to the ideas and approaches in your research methods from peers and colleagues. Network Increase confidence and personal develop ment while enhancing your CV.

Be considered for a Symp Select or Workshop Select speaker, or one of the 500 oral platform session speaker slots. Publish Have your accepted abstract published and included in a fully searchable supplement to Biophysical Journal .

Don’t Forget... abstracts submitted to the Biophysics Education category will also be reviewed in an appropriate scientific abstract category for platform presentation consideration.

The Biophysical Society Annual Meeting is a highly valuable gathering of the biophysical community. I have met so many and learned so much through the Annual Meetings and the Biophysical Journal . I can’t imagine my career without them. — Jessica M. Swanson, University of Utah

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Annual Meeting

Apply for a Poster or Travel Award Student Research Achievement Awards The Student Research Achievement Award (SRAA) competi tion provides graduate students (PhD and Master level) the opportunity to present their poster to senior researchers in their field. This is an excellent opportunity for graduate students to hone their presentation skills. If you are a facul ty member, please encourage your students attending the Annual Meeting to register for the competition.

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 pro mote greater interaction among biophysicists throughout the world. Awards range in size, depending on travel distance to the Annual Meeting, up to a maximum of $750. Members from all over the world may apply, including those living in the Los Angeles area. Applicants must submit their abstract by the October 1 deadline and apply for Travel Awards by October 3, 2024. For more information and to apply online for the Student Research Achievement Awards, Travel Awards, and Under graduate Poster Award Competition, visit www.biophysics. org/2025meeting/awards-competitions. Plan Ahead and Reserve Your Hotel Today! Students can secure special hotel rates. Student Housing Deadline: December 6, 2024 Regular Attendee Housing Deadline: January 26, 2025 Reserve Today at www.bpshotels.com

In order to participate, students must submit their abstract by the October 1 deadline and apply for the SRAA Competition by October 3, 2024. Undergraduate Poster Award Competition The Undergraduate Poster Award Competition offers un dergraduate students a valuable opportunity to hone their presentation skills by showcasing their research to a panel of keen judges, who are eager to recognize outstanding undergraduate work. 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. Applicants must apply by January 7, 2025.

JUST-B Poster Session For the fourth year, the JUST-B (Justice for Underrepresented Scholars Training in Biophysics) Poster Session will celebrate the achievements of underrepre sented and underserved students, postdocs, and early career researchers in the field of biophysics. To present your poster during this event, you must submit an abstract for the Annual Meeting and submit an application by January 7, 2025. For specific application requirements, please visit biophysics.org/2025meeting.

biophysics.org/ 2025meeting

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Career Development

How to Achieve Work-Life Balance as a Researcher

“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans,” the saying goes. Although research is about hard work and persis- tence, circumstances can change in unforeseen ways, and one needs to be flexible to take time to deal with personal matters. In many cases, projects will still be there or the interruption is a sig nal that it is time to chart a different course. Ideally, we would all like to be “in the right place at the right time,” both professionally and privately. Ultimately, we can at least to some extent contrib ute to what this reality is or should become. Life, including in research, is (hopefully) long. Some early stag es (of those 15–35 years of age) are often hyper-competitive, but even for those who are 35–50 or more, it is not too late to change your field or employer, work towards a new degree, obtain different skills, embark on new relationships, start a family, etc. Compromises or trade-offs in your own mind and especially with a partner may be necessary. Then, there is the professional life cycle, which affects quite a few researchers as they pass their “mid-career” peak. The academic community is starting to adapt to and accommodate this realty—for example, transiting to a bigger interdisciplinary team. Time for hobbies, family, and friends is important, but many academic researchers closely identify themselves with their work and are driven by unrelenting curiosity. Again, this can change over a lifetime, but when the urge to explore and the ingenuity to solve problems fades, then research really becomes hard work. Sometimes I have thought that, on one hand, I’ll have my hobbies in retirement (I’ll really get going then!), and on the other hand, sometimes I think that maybe I should quit research and make my hobby into my job! Both are fanciful dreams: once retired, there might not be enough time or energy, and converting one’s hobby into a job is risky at best. I thrive in the flow of doing experiments, analyzing and discussing data, writing papers, and doing presentations. I am reasonably well paid for it. So why give up on something you are already very good at? Hobbies, family, and friends are different—they bring enjoyment, but also require constant engagement, in both quantity and quality of time. For very good reasons, including the beauty of personal boundaries, these are usually different from professional work. Finally, I have interviewed undergraduate applicants at a top US university for many years. One of the questions I have posed is: “Imagine you had 25 hours in a day: what would you do with the extra hour”?” In a way, it’s a trick question because the 24-hour day (168 hours per week) is a relatively arbitrary unit already. Some candidates perhaps revealed more about their lives, including their level of satisfaction with how they manage their work-life balance, than they had planned to. As mentioned above, ultimately, key aspects of a person’s life journey are under their control and they need to be accountable to themselves how they spend their time. In my opinion, finding a work-life balance is challenging, but no institution or corporation or regulation should try to do it for you. — Molly Cule

Times have indeed moved on, and many European and US academic institutions as well as companies are now focusing on work-life balance as a key to enhanced productivity and employee physical and mental well-being. Many articles have been written on 10-step programs or other strategies to accomplish a sense of work-life balance, yet even the most self-driven research scientists, particularly

academics, find the goal challenging to attain. Perhaps in a few decades we will wonder how anyone sane worked more than 25 hours per week, but here, rather than repeating mostly com mon-sense pieces of advice, I will reflect on personal experience in becoming a leading researcher. First, time is not linear and research is often unpredictable in its outcome and the effort required. There is typically a strong cor relation between engagement, focus and effort, and the results obtained, and extraordinary results usually require well above average “proof.” Publishing high-level papers is one demonstra tion of outstanding insight and dedication; however, “burning the candle at both ends” is only sustainable for periods of time. Crunch periods are inevitable, and some researchers thrive on them, while others prefer when efforts are spread out more evenly. Many principal investigators, such as myself, emphasize output over time needed in the lab, and I have even sent co-work ers home or on a vacation to recharge if they seemed to be over working. I’ve done the same for those who have accomplished much efficiently—including sending them to a conference, which is a reward for those who like to travel. Yet, I also remind my coworkers that graduate and postdoctoral research training and accomplishments will set them on promising tracks for their longer-term careers in science: “Work smarter, not (just) harder.” There are likely competitors somewhere in the world, working on a project similar to yours, who are doing both. “Cookie cutter” approaches don’t work. Every human being is an individual and generally the worst mistake you can make is to assume that others should think and act like you do. Teams and organizations thrive with the individuals’ strengths and they can only make so many allowances for someone’s weaknesses or quirks. Thus, conversations between a mentor and coworkers need to happen on the topic of work-life balance and preferred working styles in a very honest manner. Nevertheless, it is the lab director’s prerogative to shape their team by enforcing common activities and standards with respect to the research products that leave the lab.

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AMnenmu ab le Mr Ceoertni negr

Members in the News

Abby Dernburg

Arthur Palmer III

Stephen Sligar

Claudia Turro

Gary Yellen

Two Society members were named Goldwater Scholars: Adam Gatch , Clemson University and Society member since 2023; and Morgan Rice , Georgetown University and Society member since 2023. Adam Gatch Morgan Rice

Five Society members were elected to the National Academy of Sciences: Abby Dernburg , University of California, Berkeley and Society member since 2017; Arthur Palmer III , Columbia University and Society member since 1987; Stephen Sligar , University of Illinois, Urbana- Champaign and Society member since 1985; Claudia Turro , Ohio State University and Society member since 2023; and Gary Yellen , Harvard Medical School and Society member since 1983.

Grants & Opportunities Sloan Research Fellowships The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation seeks nominations of outstanding early career researchers for the Sloan Re search Fellowships in the fields of chemistry, computer science, Earth system science, economics, mathematics, neuroscience, physics, or a related field. Who can apply: Candidates must hold a PhD and be a tenure-track member of the faculty of a degree-granting institution of the United States or Canada, with a regular teaching obligation. Deadline: September 15, 2024 Website: https:/sloan.org/fellowships/apply-2

Alan T. Waterman Award The Alan T. Waterman Award is the highest honor awar ded by the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). This award was established to recognize outstanding young researchers in any field of science or engineering sup ported by the NSF. Each awardee receives a medal and a grant of $1,000,000 over five years for scientific research or advanced study at the institution of the recipient’s choice. Who can apply: Nominees must be a U.S. citizen or per manent resident and must be 40 years of age or younger or not more than 10 years beyond receipt of their PhD. Deadline: September 20, 2024 Website: https:/new.nsf.gov/od/honorary-awards/ waterman

Student Spotlight

Nicole Curtis University of Illinois Chicago What skill have you learned in your studies that you find useful in other aspects of your life? Throughout my PhD career, I’ve learned to think on my feet and adapt to change. If there’s one thing about science, it’s that things don’t always go how you plan, so being able to act quickly to pivot is crucial. This also translates to my life when I need to make a fast change if something comes up. Not everyone can adapt to change easily, but as a scientist, that’s a large part of what I do!

Nicole Curtis

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Call for Papers

Special Issue: Challenges in Biomolecular Simulations

Editors: Tamar Schlick (New York University)

Rommie Amaro (University of California San Diego) Abhishek Singharoy (Arizona State University)

Inspired by the recent Simons Center for Computational Physical Chemistry Symposium at New York University on Challenges in Biomolecular Simulations, we invite authors to contribute articles on the state-of-the-art in biomolecular simulations, both current progress and anticipated challenges for the future. All areas of biomolecular modeling are of interest, from quantum degrees of freedom to coarse-grained supramolecular complexes, bioinformatics, and machine learning. We invite contributions in algorithms, applications, and hardware implementations. If you are interested in writing a perspective or review article, please contact the editors, Tamar Schlick (schlick@nyu.edu), Rommie Amaro (ramaro@ucsd.edu), and Abhishek Singharoy (asinghar@asu.edu) for pre-approval.

Deadline for submission: November 30, 2024

• Instructions for authors can be found at: https:/www.cell.com/biophysj/authors.

• Please include a cover letter stating that you would like to contribute to the Challenges in Biomolecular Simulations special issue and please describe why the work fits into the issue. • All accepted articles will be reviewed upon receipt and will appear online as soon as accepted, even if submitted early. • Normal publishing charges will apply. • Questions can be addressed to the BJ Editorial Office at BJ@biophysics.org or to (240) 290-5600.

Biophysical Society

To submit, visit https:/ www.editorialmanager.com/biophysical-journal/

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