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Biophysical Society announces new and notable symposium speakers

The Biophysical Society has announced the speakers for the New and Notable Symposium at the Society’s 51st Annual Meeting in Baltimore, MD. The new and notable symposium highlights the latest and most exciting discoveries in biophysics. Speakers are nominated and selected by the Society’s program committee. The session will take place Monday March 5, 2007 from 10:45 AM – 12:45 PM in ballroom 1 of the Baltimore Convention Center.

New and Notable Symposium Speakers and Information:

Conformational Entropy in Molecular Recognition by Proteins: A First Example from the Calmodulin System. Joshua Wand, University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Wand has recently made a fundamental breakthrough in our understanding of the role conformational entropy in molecular recognition. Using side chain dynamics obtained from NMR, Wand's group has characterized the binding of calmodulin to a range of biologically relevant targets, resulting in a broad range (including a sign change) in the residual entropy change upon binding. These studies reveal the critical role of dynamics in the evolution of high affinity binding.

Many Plasma Membrane Proteins like the Phosphoinositide PIP2. Bertil Hille, University of Washington.

Dr. Hille has created new tools to rapidly decrease the level of PIP2 in cells, and has used the tools to investigate the effect of PIP2 on ion channels. The results, and the new tools, are both new and notable.

Probing the Molecular Architectures of Bacterial and Mammalian Cells with 3D Electron Microscopy. Sriram Subramaniamm, NIH.

Dr. Subramaniam has generated new images of the receptor-kinase complex that regulates bacterial chemotaxis. In recent years it has been proposed that the complexes cluster at the poles of the cells, and Subramaniam has generated the first pictures of these complexes. The images are obtained using live cells rapidly frozen in aqueous media without fixatives, etc, so one can be confident the observed complexes represent the native structure. This is a major advance for the structural description of the receptor clusters that appear to be present in all bacteria that chemotax - an enormous array of prokaryotic organisms that share the same general chemotaxis pathway. The bacterial chemotaxis pathway is widely discussed as a paradigm system in signaling biology.

The Structural Basis of Ribozyme-Catalyzed RNA Assembly and its Implications for an RNA World. William Scott, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Professor William G. Scott. just solved the first structure of an RNA ligase. This elegant study reveals the mechanism by which RNA is able to copy itself and directly addresses the "chicken or the egg" problem of what came first, proteins or nucleic acids. It is a wonderful contribution to the biophysical literature and represents absolutely fundamental science.

For more information or press credentials, contact Ellen Weiss at eweiss@biophysics org, or stop by the Society office located in the Charles St. VIP Suite in the Baltimore convention center.

The Biophysical Society, founded in 1956, is a professional, scientific society established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its annual meeting, monthly journal, and committee and outreach activities. Its nearly 8000 members are located throughout the U.S. and the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry. For more information on the society or the 2007 annual meeting, visit www.biophysics.org.

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