Biophysical Society Announces Winners of 2010 Student Travel Awards

December 13, 2009 – Bethesda, MD – The Biophysical Society has announced the winners of its student travel award to attend the Biophysical Society’s 54th Annual Meeting at the Moscone Convention Center in San Francisco, California, February 20-24, 2010.

The recipients of this competitive award are selected based on scientific merit, with priority given to those who will present a paper at the conference. Each awardee receives a travel grant and will be recognized at a reception on Saturday, February, 20.

The 2010 recipients of the Student Travel Award are:

Katherine Alfieri, Haverford College, “CYANYLATED CYSTEINE USED TO MAP MEMBRANE BINDING AND INTER-PEPTIDE CONTACTS IN A MODEL ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDE.”

Luba Arotsky, Rowan University, “INVESTIGATION OF A SEQUENCEMODIFIED ANTIMICROBIAL PEPTIDE.”

Tristan Bereau, Carnegie Mellon, “IDENTIFYING TWO-STATE TRANSITIONS BY MICROCANONICAL ANALYSIS: COARSE-GRAINED SIMULATIONS OF HELICAL PEPTIDES.”

Ginka Buchner, Julius-Maximilians-Universitaet, Wuerzburg, Germany, “EFFECTS OF MUTATIONS ON SIDE-SPECIFIC FOLDING MECHANISM OF A HELIX-TURN-HELIX PROTEIN.”

Stacie Bulfer, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, “CRYSTAL STRUCTURE AND FUNCTIONAL ANALYSIS OF HOMOCITRATE SYNTHASE, AN ESSENTIAL ENZYME IN LYSINE BIOSYNTHESIS.”

Olga Buzovetsky, Wesleyan University, “BINDING AND BENDING PARAMETERS OF INTEGRATION HOST FACTOR TO FOUR-WAY HOLLIDAY JUNCTION.”

Juan Calderón, Instituto Venezolano de Investigaciones Científicas, Caracas, Venezuela, “Ca2+ TRANSIENTS AND MYOSIN HEAVY CHAIN (MHC)COMPOSITION IN MURINE ENZYMATICALLY DISSOCIATED FIBERS.”

Christine Carlisle, Wake Forest University, “THE MECHANICAL PROPERTIES OF INDIVIDUAL CROSSLINKED AND UNCROSSLINKED FIBRIN FIBERS.”

Chun Ju Chen, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, “MECHANISTIC ANALYSIS OF KAR3CIK1 FOR MITOTIC FUNCTION.”

Huimin Chen, Cornell University, “TEMPERATURE-DEPENDENT SINGLE-MOLECULE FLUORESCENCE MEASUREMENTS OF RNA MOTIFS MELTING.”

David Courson, University of Chicago, “ACTIN CROSSLINKING PROTEINS RECOGNIZE DISTINCT ARRANGEMENTS OF ACTIN FILAMENTS.”

Justin Decarreau, University of Vermont, “LOOP 1’S ROLE IN A NOVEL STEP ON THE ADP RELEASE PATHWAY OF SMOOTH MUSCLE.”

Alison Dewald, University of Virginia, “THE SPONTANEOUS REFOLDING OF OPACITYASSOCIATED PROTEINS INTO LIPID MEMBRANES.”

Michelle Edwards, University of Toronto, Canada, “CHARACTERIZATION OF INDOLICIDINMEMBRANE INTERACTIONS BY SIMULTANEOUS ATTENUATED TOTAL REFLECTION FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY-ATOMIC FORCE MICROSCOPY.”

Michael Feldkamp, Univeristy of Iowa, “CALMODULIN REGULATION OF THE NEURONAL VOLTAGE-DEPENDENT SODIUM CHANNEL.”

Wenxun Gan, University of Chicago, “CHARACTERIZATION OF CONFORMATIONAL TRANSITIONS IN SRC KINASE USING THE STRING METHOD WITH SWARMS-OFTRAJECTORIES AND MARKOVIAN MILESTONING.”

Saba Ghassemi, Columbia University, “HIGH RESOLUTION FORCE DISTRIBUTION OF MIGRATING AND SPREADING CELLS.”

Janhavi Giri, University of Illinois at Chicago, “MONTE CARLO SIMULATION OF FREE ENERGY COMPONENTS: ENERGETICS OF SELECTIVE BINDING IN A REDUCED MODEL OF L-TYPE CA CHANNELS.”

Agnieszka Gorska, Nicolaus Copernicus University, Torun, Poland, “DEPOSITION OF MODEL BIOMIMETIC MEMBRANES ON A SOFT SUPPORT.”

Kripa Gowrishankar, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India, “ACTIVE RE-MODELLING OF CORTICAL ACTIN REGULATES SPATIOTEMPORAL ORGANIZATION OF MOLECULES ON A LIVING CELL SURFACE.”

Ahleah Gustina, University of Maryland, Baltimore, “THE EAG DOMAIN REGULATES OUTWARD CURRENT DENSITY AND RECOVERY FROM INACTIVATION OF THE HERG K+ CHANNEL THROUGH A NON-COVALENT INTERACTION.”

Marsiyana Henricus, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, “STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS OF HEPTAMERIC ALPHA-HEMOLYSIN UNDER EXTREME CONDITIONS THAT FACILITATE NUCLEIC ACID TRANSLOCATION.”

Seamus Holden, University of Oxford, United Kingdom, “TIRF-BASED FRET WITH ONE BASEPAIR RESOLUTION.”

Hsin-Fang Hsu, National Taiwan University, Taipei, Taiwan, “INVESTIGATING THE NUCLEATION AND EXTENSION RATES OF E.COLI AND DEINOCOCCUS RECA ALONG DUPLEX DNA.”

William Humphries IV, Georgia Institute of Technology, “LATE ENDOSOMAL DEGRADATION OF LOW-DENSITY LIPOPROTEIN PROBED WITH MULTI-COLOR SINGLE PARTICLE TRACKING FLUORESCENCE MICROSCOPY.”

Helgi Ingolfsson, Weill Cornell Medical College, “HIGH THROUGHPUT GRAMICIDIN-BASED FLUORESCENCE ASSAY TO SCREEN FOR SMALL MOLECULES’ BILAYER-PERTURBING POTENTIAL.”

David Langleaan, Dalhousie University, “STRUCTURE, DYNAMICS AND TOPOLOGY OF THE NTERMINUS AND FIRST TRANSMEMBRANE SEGMENT OF APJ.”

Ji Li, University of Minnesota, “OLIGOMERIC INTERACTIONS IN CARDIAC CALCIUM REGULATION.”

Elena Lopez-Rodriguez, Universidad Complutense Madrid, Spain, “INHIBITION OF PULMONARY SURFACTANT BY MECONIUM: BIOPHYSICAL PROPERTIES AND MOLECULAR MECHANISM.”

Susanna Lynch, Calvin College, “A SINGLE MOLECULE FORCE SPECTROSCOPY STUDY OF THE BINDING INTERACTION BETWEEN INSULIN AND G-QUADRUPLEX DNA.”

Christopher McAndrew, The Catholic University of America, “A NEW CLOSED CELL, HORIZONTAL MAGNETIC TWEEZER.”

Richard McKenney, Columbia University, “LIS1 AND NUDE PERMIT MULTIPLE DYNEIN MOTORS TO COOPERATE TO TRANSPORT HIGH LOADS.”

Matthew Nystoriak, University of Vermont, College of Medicine, “KV CHANNEL SUPPRESSION AND ENHANCED CaV CHANNEL ACTIVITY CONTRIBUTE TO INCREASED CONSTRICTION OF PARENCHYMAL ARTERIOLES FROM SUBARACHNOID HEMORRHAGE MODEL RATS.”

Olga Lucia Ospina Ramirez, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, “SURFACE ACTIVITY OF SURFACTANT PROTEIN SP-B AND SP-C IN DIFFERENT LIPID ENVIRONMENTS.”

Arti Patel, California State University, Long Beach, “PYRENE FLUORESCENCE ANALYSIS OFFERS NEW INSIGHTS INTO THE CONFORMATION OF THE LIPOPROTEIN-BINDING DOMAIN OF HUMAN APOLIPOPROTEIN E.”

Qing Peng, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, “DIRECT OBSERVATION OF THE TUG-OF-WAR DURING THE FOLDING OF A MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE PROTEIN.”

Anna Popova, University of Southern California, “SEQUENCE-SPECIFIC STEREOMERIC ENVIRONMENT IN A DNA DUPLEX REVEALED BY A NUCLEOTIDE-INDEPENDENT NITROXIDE PROBE.”

Andrej Savol, University of Pittsburgh, “PROTEIN TRAJECTORY RECONSTRUCTION STRATEGIES FROM FRET-DERIVED DISTANCE CONSTRAINTS.”

Siddharth Shenoy, Carnegie Mellon University, “LIPID DIFFUSION IN TETHERED BILAYER LIPID MEMBRANES (TBLMS).”

Kevin Song, University of Kansas, “COMPARISON OF LIPID MONOLAYERS AND BILAYERS BY COMPARATIVE MOLECULAR DYNAMICS SIMULATIONS OF A LIPID-LIKE DYE MOLECULE.”

Amy Speelman, Hope College, “MODELING FLUORESCENTLY TAGGED DNA AND RNA OLIGONUCLEOTIDES FOR DIRECT COMPARISON TO FLUORESCENCE-DETECTED RESONANCE ENERGY TRANSFER (FRET) EXPERIMENTS.”

Cynthia Stanich, University of Washington, “DIRECT MEASUREMENT OF TIME-DEPENDENT DOMAIN COARSENING IN GIANT UNILAMELLAR VESICLES.”

Daniel Verbaro, Drexel University, “INVESTIGATING CONFORMATIONAL ENSEMBLES IN ALANINE BASED PEPTIDES USING VIBRATIONAL AND ECD SPECTROSCOPY.”

Danielle Visschedyk, University of Guelph, Canada, “INTRODUCING PHOTOX: A NOVEL ACTIN-TARGETING MONO-ADP-RIBOSYLTRANSFERASE.”

The Biophysical Society, founded in 1956, is a professional, scientific society established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. The Biophysical Society’s Annual Meeting is the world’s largest meeting of biophysicists -over 6,000 attendees are expected. Over 4000 scientific abstracts have already been submitted for presentation at this event. For more information about the Meeting or the Society’s awards, visit http:/www.biophysics.org or contact Ellen R. Weiss at (301) 634- 7176 or

Email: eweiss@biophysics.org
www.biophysics.org