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BPS Blog

Welcome to the BPS Blog. Our blog provides the unique opportunity to share with the biophysics community worldwide BPS-related news, updates, and biophysics content. The interdisciplinary nature of biophysics provides the opportunity for biologists, physicists, chemists, bioengineers, and others to collaborate and push scientific discoveries. Check back often for the latest news and updates.  

An Interview with Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy

BJ: How did you compose the image on the July 12 issue of Biophysical Journal?

AR: We used Visual Molecular Dynamics software (http://www.ks.uiuc.edu/Research/vmd/) and the program Persistence of Vision Raytracer (http://www.povray.org/) to create the image. 

BJ: How does this image reflect your scientific research?

AR: This image represents our molecular vision of the role of cholesterol in amylin-mediated membrane damage.

BJ: Can you please provide a real-world example of how your research might be applied?

AR: Is hypercholesterolemia related to an increased risk to develop type 2 diabetes? The main goal of our research is to provide a molecular framework for the relationship between diet and lifestyle and proteinopathies.

BJ: How does your research apply to those who are not working in your specific field?

AR: Clinicians will find this study to be useful to gain insights into the molecular mechanisms underlying type 2 diabetes development. In particular, this may help them to better correlate symptoms with lifestyle.

BJ: Do you have a website where our readers can view your recent research?

AR: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Carmelo_La_Rosa and http://rams.biop.lsa.umich.edu/, https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Danilo_Milardi.

- Michele Sciacca, Fabio Lolicato, Giacomo Di Mauro, Danilo Milardi, Luisa D'Urso, Cristina Satriano, Carmelo La Rosa, Ayyalusamy Ramamoorthy

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«December 2024»
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12/2/2024
16249

Know the Editor

Each issue of BPS Bulletin highlights an editor from the Editorial Board of one of the BPS publications. For the December 2024 issue, we are highlighting Jianping Fu, an editor for Biophysical Journal.

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12/3/2024
16277

Phonon Modes in Nanostructured Lipid Bilayers

In this collaboration between high-resolution inelastic X-ray scattering (IXS) and all-atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulation, we computed the phonon dispersions from both IXS spectroscopy and MD simulation for ternary mixtures of dioleoyl phosphocholine (DOPC)/dipalmitoyl phosphatidylcholine (DPPC)/cholesterol (Chol) (an unsaturated lipid, a saturated lipid, and cholesterol) in both the liquid-ordered and liquid-disordered phases.

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4
12/4/2024
16283

Birth, Evolution, and Death of Positively and Negatively Supercoiled Regions in Circular DNAs

DNA forms supercoiled regions in an otherwise relaxed state due to torsional strain that is generated because of the twisting of the DNA helix. The supercoiling is of two types: positive supercoiling, in which the DNA helix undergoes over-winding, and negative supercoiling, in which the DNA helix undergoes under-winding.

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12/11/2024
16309

Engineering Stress as a Motivation for Filamentous Virus Morphology

In our research, we study the morphology and cellular interactions of viruses by using super-resolution fluorescence microscopy and advanced image analysis tools. We are interested in understanding why many viruses form particles that vary in size and shape, ranging from small spheres to long filamentous structures that can reach many microns in length, because this is not well understood.

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12/17/2024
16331

The Unique and Exotic Voltage-Gated Proton Channel

The cover image of the December 17 issue of Biophysical Journal was created by an irreproducible combination of drawing by hand, scanning, and editing with Paint.  I liked the result, because it was simple and reminded me of the “underground” artwork of Robert Crumb in Zap Comix published in the late 1960s. 

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SAHELI MITRA:

A must read.

Coronavirus Structure, Vaccine and Therapy Development
Brennan Weaver:

Pretty nice read. I wish I could have written something about Pi. It's my 2nd favorite number value. Also, I don't think Pi is as mysterious as everyone thinks it is. It's just a number with a lot of personalities. And I do believe there is a last digit.

Pi Is Encoded in the Patterns of Life
Harel Weinstein:

Just perused the article "From Dynamics to Membrane Organization- Experimental Breakthroughs Occasion a ‘‘Modeling Manifesto’’ in the August 21 issue. While the Perspective is intriguing, the sheer Chutzpah of writing a "manifesto" about a field of modeling with lists of "demands" based on experiments that in many cases are more limited in scope or reality than any physics-based model, is quite astounding. Neither artificial membrane slabs, nor "live cells" imaged under conditions in which cells have a shabby life that doesn't last long (how much of this is due to the mistreatment of the membrane proteins?) share established behaviors that must be matched or else.... No experiment, computational or using imaging, is meant to mimic reality, only to probe it based on models and assumptions that can be falsified.

As to the role of the cytoskeleton, what does this tell us about the membrane itself, or the behavior of membrane proteins as individual molecules in their interplay with the membrane? And since this unrelated scaffold differs greatly between cells, what is the "correct matching standard"? All models are wrong, some (computational, or on the stage of a microscope) are useful, but in my opinion, self-critical, humble, and rigorous scientific reasoning are preferable to a manifesto in order to foster progress.

In Search of…Protein Interaction Partners
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