Carlos Baiz, Assistant Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin, grew up in Salto, Uruguay, a small town near the northern border with Brazil and across the river from Argentina. He always liked taking things apart and exploring how things worked. “In high school, I became seriously interested in chemistry,” he says. “The book that really got me thinking about studying chemistry was General Chemistry by Linus Pauling. I had picked up this book at a bookstore on impulse and ended up reading it cover to cover.”
He traveled to the United States as an exchange student in 2001 for his final year of high school, to learn English and experience the culture. He lived with a host family in Calumet, Michigan, a small town in the state’s Upper Peninsula. “I really liked the area and my host family, so after graduating, I decided to stay and attend Michigan Technological University as an undergraduate,” he shares.
As a young person, Baiz says, “I never had a strong sense of what career I wanted to pursue, all I knew is that I liked physics and chemistry. I wanted to learn more about how molecules behaved, and how chemical structures translate to bulk material properties. When I joined a lab as an undergraduate, I discovered how rewarding scientific research can be.”
He received his bachelor of science degree in chemistry from Michigan Technological University in 2005, then undertook a PhD program at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, where he worked with Kevin Kubarych. Following the completion of his PhD, he joined Andrei Tokmakoff’s group at MIT, where he began using infrared (IR) spectroscopy to study protein folding. “During my postdoc, the group moved from MIT to the University of Chicago,” he shares. “I was very involved with the move. Helping set up the new labs in Chicago was a valuable experience and helped me understand the intricacies of setting up laser labs from scratch. The experience translated very well when setting up my own labs at University of Texas-Austin.”
As a postdoc, he explored fast protein folding using temperature-jump two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy. “Infrared spectroscopy probes the vibrational modes of the protein backbone, which report directly on the secondary structure of the protein. However, the spectra are congested and somewhat difficult to interpret,” he explains. “We were fortunate to collaborate with Prof. Vijay Pande on simulations. The MD [molecular dynamics] simulations were essential for helping us understand how the protein folds. I also worked on developing simulation methods to interpret IR spectra of large proteins. The efforts were mostly directed at making 2D IR spectroscopy a more useful biophysical tool.”
Following his postdoc, Baiz started a position as assistant professor in the chemistry department at the University of Texas at Austin. His group is investigating proteins and lipid membranes using IR spectroscopy. “Specifically, we investigate the environments surrounding biomolecules using ultrafast infrared spectroscopy. In general, we are interested in complex, crowded environments that mimic the cell cytoplasm. Much of the protein folding work that was done in the past, starting with the Anfinsen experiments, has been on biomolecules in dilute buffer solutions, but recently it has become evident that the environment plays a significant role in determining the structure and the dynamics of proteins,” he shares. “We are also investigating ‘cryoprotectants,’ which are small molecules that are typically added to cells prior to freezing them. Freezing single cells is possible, but with larger tissues, ice crystals mechanically damage the cells and tissue structure. Cryoprotectants are compounds that cause water to freeze in a disordered ‘glassy’ state. These compounds, however, are toxic to cells at the concentrations required for freezing large tissues. For this reason, we are investigating their effects on protein and membrane structure and stability. Understanding the effects of these compounds on biomolecules will enable us to develop formulations that have lower toxicity.”
Recently, his research has been moving towards applying the methods of physical chemistry to investigating complex systems in their native environments. “One emerging area of biophysics is investigating the effects of crowding and heterogeneity, and molecular diversity. For example, plasma membranes contain hundreds of different lipid species,” he explains. “Many of the early experiments used simple bilayers composed of a single lipid species as a mimic of the plasma membrane, but it is becoming evident that heterogeneity plays an important role. I believe, in general, biophysicists are quickly leaving the ‘test tube’ behind and beginning to investigate the behavior of molecules in their native environments. I am excited to be part of this emerging area of biophysics.”
The most rewarding and challenging aspect of his career is working with students. “New professors are hired because of their training in research—doing experiments, analyzing data, writing papers, etc.—but we receive very little training on how to successfully lead and mentor a diverse group of students,” he says. “Working with students and postdocs of different cultural backgrounds, with different levels of expertise, and inspiring everyone to bring their own perspective to the group has also been incredibly rewarding. I am lucky to work with such a talented group of students and postdocs every day.”
He shares one of the key pieces of advice he gives to his students and trainees: “I subscribe to the ‘fail often and fail quickly’ philosophy. In science, success often comes after a series of failures, so it is important to learn what things don’t work, in order to find out what works. In this process, it is also important to try new things, take risks, and not give up so easily. It is easy to talk yourself out of doing an experiment, but until you try something, you cannot know for sure whether it will work.”
Baiz’s colleague Martin Zanni, University of Wisconsin-Madison, is familiar with his work primarily as an editor of The Journal of Physical Chemistry, and admires his insight. “Carlos Baiz is a very talented and creative biospectroscopist. His research draws from a range of experimental and theoretical techniques and the depth of the insights reflected in his work is remarkable,” Zanni shares. “Although he is my junior by a decade, he has impacted my thinking on a range of topics, from the classification of protein structural dynamics to infrared microscopy. He is applying new infrared spectroscopies to gain insights into vexing problems in biophysics.”
When he is not in the lab, Baiz pursues a variety of hobbies that keep him busy. “I enjoy being outdoors, hiking and canoeing in the summer. I also compose and mix electronic music on my computer,” he says. “I am interested in history, particularly US military and nuclear history. I also have a small collection of firearms and I enjoy going to the range every once in a while.”
His advice to young researchers is to “find something you enjoy doing and pursue it with all your passion. Do not worry about your future. Instead do what you enjoy, and you will be successful as a scientist.”