It is New Year’s Eve as I write my last BPS Bulletin column as President of the Society. Looking back over the nearly one year since I took up the gavel, I can’t help but think how lucky the Society was to be able to hold the 2020 meeting in person. How innocent we were then! Only three weeks after the meeting much of the country was in lockdown, and 2020 began in earnest its long horrendous slog through the pandemic. The Spring meeting of Council, usually held at the President’s institution, had to go virtual, as did the fall meeting, usually held at the BPS offices near Washington, DC. The gavel does not lend itself to Zoom. But in fact, there was no need for gaveling. Council really pulled together this year as we had to make really difficult decisions, the hardest of which was to move the 2021 meeting online. Society staff have been incredible during the year as well, switching apparently seamlessly to working from home and on-line. Honestly, I could not tell the difference. Moving the meeting online took an allhands-on-deck effort, and I am truly grateful for all the hard work by Society staff and the Program Committee in pulling this together.
All aspects of BPS functions have been impacted by the pandemic, of course. Our finances have taken the triple hit of having to pay cancellation fees for the 2021 meeting venue, the added cost of contracting with various new vendors to hold the upcoming online meeting, and the loss of revenue from membership dues — most BPS members renew their membership when they register for the meeting. While the online meeting has attracted more registrants so far than we anticipated, we still are low in membership renewals. Over the years BPS Council had built up financial reserves for a contingency such as this (natural disasters, cyber or terror attack). It turned out to be a global pandemic. Thankfully the reserves will help get us through this, but still Society finances have suffered quite a bit.
So I am asking you to do two things right now to help the Society: (1) If you have not registered for the 2021 virtual Annual Meeting it is not too late to do so. Note that the Program Committee has put together an impressive program with plenty of talks, posters, career and other panels, as well as chat rooms to meet up with colleagues; and (2) Even if you do not plan to attend the meeting, renew your Society membership! Biophysics needs you now more than ever.
Also note that if you do not plan to attend the entire BPS meeting, anyone in the world can attend the President’s Symposuim: Building an Inclusive Biophysical Society, followed by the 2021 Awards Ceremony and the Society Lecture, given by Eva Nogales of University of California Berkeley. These events will be held on the last day of the meeting, from 10:00 am12:00 pm USA Eastern on Friday, February 26, 2021. Information about the full program can be found on the Society website.
One of the issues that I have tried to highlight during my presidency is the importance of Biophysical Journal to the Society’s strategic goals (sharing knowledge about biophysics, promoting biophysics, fostering a global community, advocating for biophysics). The journal is also extremely important to the Society financially, bringing in about one-third of the Society’s revenues that are then used in member services programs and activities.
So there is one more thing I will ask you to do for BPS before I leave the presidency. Submit at least one manuscript to BJ every year. The journal exists for you to highlight your work and share it with your colleagues. One manuscript per year from all BPS PI’s would elevate the journal and in addition to making the journal stronger, your contributions will directly benefit BPS.
I hope to “see” many of you during the 2021 online meeting in February, when I will turn over the gavel to Frances Separovic, our incoming President. Looking forward to an in-person meeting in San Francisco in 2022, I think we can all celebrate the crucial role of science in bringing us an ever-increasing number of safe and effective vaccines to beat down this virus. This feat of the scientific community was built on a lot of excellent biophysics over the years, including protein structure and dynamics, RNA physical chemistry, physical chemistry of lipids, and the biophysics of the immune response. Without the great work of biophysicists over the last decades, these lifesaving vaccines would not have been possible.
SARS-CoV2 will not be the last dangerous virus or other infectious pathogen that will threaten our well-being worldwide.
We at BPS must continue our efforts to advocate for science and science funding through our outreach and education programs, our public affairs activities, and our efforts to broaden and diversify the STEM workforce in order to make sure that discoveries continue to expand our understanding of the natural world, and provide a basis for new technologies for improving human health and the environment.
It has been an honor and a pleasure to serve as BPS President during a year that was challenging (to say the least) for all of us, some more so than others. I hope that you have found support from the Society, and that like me, your love for science has kept you going. I look forward to seeing all of you in person in San Francisco in 2022.
—Catherine A. Royer