Biophysical Society Newsletter - November 2014

16

BIOPHYSICAL SOCIETY NEWSLETTER

2014

NOVEMBER

Subgroups

this “from-the-ground-up” approach is ultimately the one to take if we want to understand how the living things function. Has joining the BIV subgroup impact the way you think about the field yet? It is hard to say because I joined the BIV subgroup roughly at the same time that I moved from UIUC to Stanford to start my postdoc, which overall had a big impact on me. It is difficult to decouple the contributions of individu- al events. I think interacting with the best scientist in my field will inevitably have an impact on me over time. I hope that this membership will help me shape my scientific interests and identify my own future research directions. What activity of the BIV subgroup is most important to you? I think the most exciting activity for any member of the Biophysical Society is the BPS annual meet- ing, and for me as a member of the BIV subgroup, it is the BIV symposium that I look forward to the most. This symposium is a very unique forum that brings together researchers at various stages in their career who are really at the forefront of exploring fundamental mechanisms of molecular and cell biology, building tools to investigate these mechanisms, and using the discovered rules to solve problems in biotechnology and biomedicine. In addition, during my tenure as the BIV sub- group postdoc representative I also hope to help increase the student/postdoc participation in the other initiatives of BIV, e.g., the dissemination of in vivo-related cutting-edge science and research symposia, and the BIV logo contest. — Silvia Cavagnero , BIV Subgroup Chair

BIV Fascinated by Live Cells

Maxim Prigozhin , the BIV subgroup postdoc rep- resentative, is interviewed in this issue of the BPS newsletter. Max did his undergrad at the Univer- sity of Toronto before he joined the lab of Martin Gruebele at the University of Illinois for his PhD in chemical physics. He is now at Stanford Uni- versity working with Steven Chu . When did you become excited about biophysics? I did some biophysics research during my under- graduate studies, which is why I decided to pursue this direction in graduate school. What drew me to biophysics in the first place is how eclectic this area of research is. For example, in Martin’s lab, we did everything ourselves: we cultured cells, mutated and expressed proteins, played with lasers, built microscopes, designed electronics, wrote software for simulation and data analysis... you name it! Everyone could really pick what they were excited about doing the most and forge their own path. And if you got bored, well, you just did something else for a while! What was your motivation to join the Biopolymers in Vivo (BIV) subgroup? My PhD work was mostly concerned with pro- teins in a test tube. For my postdoc, I decided to switch into the realm of live-cell biophysics. I fig- ured, this way the biopolymers get to stay in their native environment and I don’t have to express/ purify them anymore! I naturally gravitated to- wards the BIV subgroup because its members, like myself, seek to combine the microscopic under- standing of the chemistry of biomolecular interac- tions with the meso- and macroscopic arrange- ments that these interactions lead to. I believe that