For the first time, the BPS 2023 Annual Meeting included a Platform session focused on Biophysics Education. I don’t know if there will be a Biophysics Education session next year, but this year’s session convinced me that there should be! Knowing how packed the schedule was, it wouldn’t be surprising if you missed it. I went there not really knowing what to expect. There were a lot of talks, some were extremely useful even for those who don’t actively teach. What stood out for me was as follows:
Edward T. Eng’s talk "Centralized facilities improve biomedical researchers’ access to cryoEM technology": This talk was about the National Center for Cryo-Electron Microscopy Access and Training service hosted by the New York Structural Biology Center. They offer extensive training opportunities including hands-on and virtual options, with the hopes of improving accessibility to cryoEM technology.
Julia R. Koeppe’s talk "The Basil Cure: using structure to predict function in protein biochemistry": This was about an undergraduate biochemistry lab curriculum involving computational and wet lab approaches to study proteins of known structure but unknown function. The developed curriculum materials are available for free on basilbiochem.org. I thought this was a brilliant example of incorporating research experience into undergraduate curriculum.
Philip C. Nelson’s talk "Learning biological physics via modeling and simulation: A course for science and bioengineering undergraduates": This talk was heavily focused on undergraduate curriculum. Dr. Nelson presented his approach to teaching biophysics that combines experimental data, modeling and physical reasoning. He emphasized three crucial components for undergraduate training that some courses can miss: data visualization, inference and algorithmic thinking. I believe the interdisciplinary nature of biophysics is intrinsically welcoming to these concepts and this talk indeed demonstrated that. Already hooked? His slides are available here.
If you missed this session, check out the abstracts and send an email to the presenters. I really hope there will be a session like this next year!