Fifty-Five Molar Stuff in Molecular Interactions: Honoring Adrian Parsegian’s Work

This Satellite Meeting at the BPS 2025 is being organized in memory of our friend, teacher, and colleague, Professor Adrian Parsegian, who passed away on July 5th, 2023. He was an outstanding scientist, an outstanding mentor, and an outstanding human being. Soon after earning his PhD in Biophysics from Harvard University, he joined NIH, where he spent 42 years. During this tenure, professor Parsegian became a leader in membrane biophysics, with his name known and respected by every biophysicist in the world. From 1983 to 1984, Professor Parsegian served as the President of the Biophysical Society. For many years, he was the Editor-in-Chief of the Biophysical Journal and the Founding Editor of the Biophysical Discussions. He worked for most of these years in the NICHD, NIH, consequently establishing the institute as a capital of membrane and cellular biophysics. In 2009, he accepted the Gluckstern Professor of Physics position at UMass, Amherst.

The topics of the meeting and the Special Issue of the Biophysical Journal to follow reflect the breadth of Professor Parsegian’s interests:

• van der Waals forces
• Hydration forces
• Membrane electrostatics
• Osmotic stress
• Protein hydration
• Hydration effects in ion channels
• Hofmeister effects in proteins and channels
• Membrane structure/mechanics
• DNA-protein interactions
• Water in MD simulations
• Membrane fusion/fission
• Water transport through membranes/channels