BPS2025 Los Angeles

The Biophysical Society’s annual meeting regularly brings together a few thousand scientists, biophysicist and those interested researchers working in the crossing fields of life and computation sciences. This year, the significant event was held in the Los Angeles Convention Center between February 15-19.

This year, the main topics of the conference symposia spead from the quantitative proteom-wide biophysics to the single-molecule biophysics, with emphases on membrane asymetry and its impact on membrane proteins function and signaling, protein structural studies in light of cryo-electron microscopy and intrinsically disordered proteins, the role of forces in cell physiology, molecular dynamics calculations, as well as the development of RNA therapeutics. Besides symposia, more methodology-oriented workshops, poster sections with hundreds of posters daily, and presentations of exhibitors completed the program.

Though there were nearly five thousand registered scientists, the conference remained familiar with the focused organization and locations of the parallel sections, also partly due to the popular poster sections in the huge exhibition room, provideng enough spaces for vivid scientific discussions.

This year’s conference, besides bringing together biophysicists in the most wide sense of the area, gave a hint on what we can expect in the coming years of biophysics research: cryo-electron microscopy of protein assemblies, multi-scale modelling of several orders of magnitude of time-scales, asymetric membranes and thir roles in membrane protein functions, mechanobiology, and studies on nano-systems.

Attendees from the Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology and their presentations:

Czigléczki, Janka (poster): Czigléczki J, Dudás B, Balog E - Exploring the nucleotide-specific conformations of the small GTPase ran

Fehér, Bence (workshop lecture): Fehér B, Nagy G, Garab Gy - Molecular dynamics simulation of lipid assemblies mimicking thylakoid membranes

Ferenczy, György (poster): Ferenczy G, Kellermayer M - Unfolding force map of the entire I-band titin

Kellermayer, Miklós (poster): Altorjay Á, Tordai H, Zolcsák Á, Kosa N, Kellermayer M - Titin’s PEVK domain modulates actin polymerization

Kiss, Balázs (poster): Kellermayer D, Sulea C, Benke K, Polos M, Agg B, Csonka M, Tordai H, Radovits T, Merkely B, Szabolcs Z, Kellermayer M, Kiss B - Titin isoforms and structural layout in the cardiac sarcomere of Marfan-syndrome patients

Liliom, Károly (poster): Schay G, Burkódi G, Klopf JM, Smeller L, Merzel F, Kellermayer M, Balog E, Liliom K - Structural fluctuations of human calmodulin at low calcium saturations - This poster was selected by the section organizers for a flash prezentation as well.

Group activities:

Our team of the institute booked the same hotel and spent together as much time as possible. We arranged some lunches and dinners together also with those family members who travelled with us. We also met several Hungarian colleagues from the Eötvös University and the University of Pécs. In the pleasant weather we enjoyed sunshine we were walking from the hotel to the meeting venue and back.