Biophysical Society announces winners of 2008 Student Travel Awards

Bethesda, MD— The Biophysical Society has announced the winners of its student travel award to attend the Joint Meeting of the Biophysical Society and the International Biophysics Congress in Long Beach, California, February 2-6, 2008. 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 2, 2008.

The 2008 recipients of the Student Travel Award are:

• Joshua K. Au, Yale University, “Widely-distributed Residues in Thymosin â4 are Critical for Actin Binding.”

• Khajak Berberian, Cornell University, “Improved Nanofabricated Electrochemical Detector Arrays for Monitoring Exocytosis.”

• Yi Cao, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada, “How Do Chemical Denaturants Affect the Mechanical Folding and Unfolding of Proteins"”

• Ashley R. Carter, JILA and University of Colorado, Boulder, “Stepping of Individual RecBCD Molecules.”

• Thomas Chadwick, North Carolina State University, “Molecular Mechanism of Phospholipid Transfer by Lipid Transporter Protein Sec14p.”

• Hao Chen, Purdue University, “Predicting the Error of Template-Based Protein Structure Modeling by Suboptimal Alignment Stability.”

• Logan R. Chieffo, Boston University, “Vibrational Lifetime of the Anesthetic Gas Nitrous Oxide as a Probe of Interfacial Water in Biological Systems.”

• Sepehr Dadsetan, University of California, Davis, “Store-Operated Ca2+-Induced Ca2+ Release Amplifies Cytosolic Ca2+ Signaling and Prevents Store Refilling in Jurkat T Cells.”

• Angel M. Davey, The Pennsylvania State University, “Dynamics Imaging of Membrane Nanostructural Changes Associated with Antigen-Mediated IgE Receptor Signaling in Mast Cells.”

• Isabelle C. Dragomir, Drexel University, “Characterization of Phenylalanine Based Short Peptides at Varying pHs, Temperatures, and Concentrations via Electronic Circular Dichroism and Absorption Spectroscopy.”

• Kyle P. Eagen, Cornell University, “Effect of a Mutation on the Channel-opening Equilibrium of a Malfunctioning GABA(A) Receptor Linked to Epilepsy.”

• Thomas C. Edrington, University of Connecticut, “The Effect of Bleaching on the Thermal Stability of Native and Cross-linked Rhodopsin.”