[caption id="attachment_1462" align="alignleft" width="300"] BPS Poster Award winner Jessica Morgan discusses her research with Dr. Marvin Bayro, National Institutes of Health.[/caption] When you think of Seattle, a traditional pow-wow, mariachi bands and almost 4,000 minority scientists are probably not what first come to mind. Yet, these were the things that attendees of the 2012 SACNAS National Conference in Seattle experienced – along with rainy weather and lots of Starbucks coffee of course. This was the fifth year that the Biophysical Society participated in the Society for Advancement of Chicanos and Native Americans in Science (SACNAS) National Conference. Luis Marky, University of Nebraska, the previous chair of the BPS Minority Affairs Committee, once again spearheaded the popular biophysics symposia, “Cutting Edge Research in the Biophysical Chemistry of Nucleic Acids and Proteins.” [caption id="attachment_1463" align="alignright" width="225"] BPS Symposia speakers, Marvin Bayro, National Institutes of Health; Silvia Cavagnero, University of Wisconsin-Madison; Rachel Klevit, University of Washington; and Gabriele Varani, University of Washington.[/caption] In addition to organizing a symposia and meeting with interested students in the Exhibit Hall, BPS sponsored four poster awards for the best biophysics related abstracts. These abstracts were presented as posters along with more than 1,000 others during the SACNAS poster sessions. The four undergraduates who won the Biophysical Society sponsored poster awards are: Jessica Morgan, California State University, Fullerton Potential Roles of DMT1 and Zip8 in Release of Iron from Lysosomes during Mobilization of Iron Stores in Mammalian Cells Guillermo Romano, University of Washington Investigating the differential availability of SH2/SH3 domains of Src Family Kinases for participation in Oncogenic Pathways Marienid Flores-Colon, University of Puerto Rico, Cayey Affinity Chromatographic Purification of Plasminogen Activators from Mammalian Cell Culture Broth Garrett Chavez, San Jose State University Engineering a Library of Light Activated P450 Biocatalysts If we met you at SACNAS, be sure to let us know in the comments! We are already looking forward to the 2013 SACNAS National Conference in San Antonio!