BPS Discussion Forums FAQs

Discussion forums are intended as a way for BPS members to communicate, collaborate and network within a particular BPS community such as a Subgroup or Committee. Some examples might be a Subgroup Chair announcing the speaker line up for your symposium, Committee Chairs discussing joint programming, a researcher informing members of upcoming events related to specific research areas, or organizing a dinner at the annual meeting. Anyone who is a member of that group can read and respond to the discussion forum.

In order to view any discussion forums, you must first log into your myBPS account. Once logged in, you can find the forums by navigating directly to https://www.biophysics.org/forums or, from our home page, by looking under Membership & Communities -> Communities -> BPS Discussion Forums

If you received the email notification, then you are subscribed to that topic and you should have access to read and reply within that topic. If you see the below error, it is likely that you are not logged into your myBPS account. After logging in using the button on the top right, you should automatically be navigated back to that conversation thread. If the error persists after logging in, please contact BPS IT so that they can investigate and resolve the issue.

You only have access to the discussion forums of the groups for which you are a member. For subgroups, if you would like access to another subgroup’s discussion forum, you will first need to join that subgroup which you can do here.

You are receiving email notifications about an active discussion in a BPS group that you are involved with. For example, as an IDP Subgroup member, you are automatically subscribed to announcements and topics in the Intrinsically Disordered Protein Subgroup’s discussion forum.

You can choose to unsubscribe from a specific topic if the discussion is not of interest to you. Once you receive an email notification connected to that topic, you can click on the “Unsubscribe” button directly in the email. It will take you to this screen.


Alternatively, from within the forums, you can will see a green bell icon next to the topic name indicates that you are currently subscribed to that topic.


If you hover over the green bell, it will explain that you are “Subscribed” while turning the bell red with a slash through it. Clicking on the red bell with a slash will Unsubscribe you from that topic.


After you unsubscribe, you should see a green pop up box that says “Successfully unsubscribed” and the green bell icon will change to an envelope. To resubscribe to a topic, simply click on the envelope again.

You can choose to unsubscribe from the entire category if you no longer wish to receive any notifications from the group. Once you receive an email notification from that category group, you can click on the “Unsubscribe” button directly in the email. It will take you to this screen.


Alternatively, from within the forums, you can will see a green bell icon next to the category name indicates that you are currently subscribed to that category. Any category to which you are authorized to view but to which you are currently unsubscribed will appear with an envelope next to the category name. In the below example, the user is subscribed to “Subgroup Officers” and “Biopolymers in Vivo Subgroup,” but is unsubscribed from “Bioenergetics Mitochondria & Metabolism Subgroup.” You can change your subscription status simply by clicking on the bell (to unsubscribe) or the envelope (to subscribe).

You can add new topic from within a specific forum, as in the below case (Bioengineering) by clicking the “+ Add topic” button.


When you are done, do not forget to scroll down and click the “Add Topic” or “Save and View” buttons for it to be posted. Clicking “Cancel” will not save your work. You can also change the status to “Draft” if you are not yet ready for the topic to be published.


Alternatively, you can also add a topic from the main landing page of the discussion forums, by clicking “+ Add Topic.”


On the next page, you will be required to select a category under which your topic is filed.


When you are done, do not forget to scroll down and click the “Add Topic” or “Save and View” buttons for it to be posted. Clicking “Cancel” will not save your work. You can also change the status to “Draft” if you are not yet ready for the topic to be published.

Everyone with access to that conversation thread will be able to read your comment when accessing the discussion forum. Everyone who is subscribed to that specific topic will be notified of your comment by email. To reply to a topic, you simply write your message in the text box and then click “ADD COMMENT”


If you would like to reply to a comment within the topic, you should click on the green arrow as seen below.


You also have the option of quoting another user in your reply, by clicking the quote (”) button.

Below the main text of your topic you will see a button “Upload Files” with which you can drag & drop or browse to select images, documents or other files.


You can upload more than one file at a time by clicking on the “+” sign. Once you have all of the files selected, scroll down and click the green “Upload # File(s)” button.



You can also add files to your comments within a topic by following the same steps.


Image files (.jpg) will appear as a thumbnail just below your text. PDF files will appear as downloadable file attachments at the bottom of your topic.

The discussion forums are not moderated as we trust our scientific community to communicate respectfully. Forums are limited to those who are members of a particular BPS community, and users must be logged into our system so that every comment is associated with someone’s name. In the event that you find any content inappropriate or otherwise in violation of our community guidelines, please report this content. To report a comment, click on the flag underneath comment. BPS staff will be notified that a comment was reported and will take any necessary next steps.


Once you click on the flag, a pop up box will appear for you to either confirm or cancel reporting the comment.