5

After accepting an invitation in late

January of 2019 by the IUPAB

Executive, I became the third Chief

Editor of Biophysical Reviews. In this

companion piece to a Commentary

describing the journal, I have been

asked by the IUPAB Secretary General

Prof. Juan Carmelo Gomez-Fernandez

to provide a short self-introduction,

both scientifically and personally, to

readers of the IUPAB Newsletter. With

a belief that you can only really judge a

scientist by reading their papers, I have

included some references from

different stages of my career framed

within a general narrative of my

working life.

Early Life: I grew up in Queensland

Australia, as the youngest child in a

family of newly arrived immigrants from

England. My Father was a policeman

and mother a homemaker. We moved

around a lot due to my Father’s

frequent work transfers, which allowed

me to see a lot of the very large state of

Queensland as a child (crocodiles,

kangaroos, beaches and the beautiful

Queensland outback/bush). As a

memorable counterpoint I also lived for

about a year in London UK, when I was

twelve years old. Like a lot of children in

Australia, I performed some of my early

schooling via correspondence course

which in those days involved sending

and receiving course work via post and

occasionally talking to your teacher by

telephone or radio.

Education: I performed my high school

studies in the capital city of Brisbane,

where my Father was posted for the

latter half of his career. After graduating

from high school I was granted

admission to study science at the

University of Queensland – one of the

so called ‘group of eight’ major

Australian universities. Performing my

undergraduate studies with final-year

majors in chemistry and biochemistry I

received a first class Honours degree in

1995. From 1996 to 1999 I earned a PhD

in Biochemistry, carrying out my studies

within the Laboratory for Physical

Biochemistry headed by Prof. Donald J.

Winzor. Don was literally one of

Australia’s first home grown physical

chemists [Winzor, 2016]. By taking only

one student at a time he had an

uncommon approach to supervision

that comported more to the K-type

strategy in r/K evolutionary theory

[Parry, 1981]. My doctoral studies were

concerned with investigations into the

theory and measurement of protein

adsorption to surfaces [Hall, 1999]. Don

retired soon after I graduated, making

me his last student. I enjoyed my Ph.D.

research with Don and later came to

appreciate the value of his style of

training from a Malthusian perspective.

During my candidature I attended a talk

by Arthur Kornberg in which he

encouraged all scientists to change

topics every five years during the early

stages of their research life. Taking this

advice to heart after graduating I left to

start my first postdoctoral position on a

new research subject!

Working Life: My first job was as a John

E. Fogarty Fellow working in the Section

on Physical Biochemistry at the National

Institutes of Health USA. I had come to

the NIH to work with Dr. Allen Minton,

who although known for his work in

developing the macromolecular

crowding concept [Minton, 2013] was

(and still is) a physical chemist who had

made significant developments in many

different areas including interfacial

chemistry, quantum theory, colloidal

analysis and characterization of

biomolecular interactions. From 2000 –

2003 I worked on the topic of

cytoskeletal assembly in complex fluids,

such as those found in the cell cytosol.

This time was academically very

stimulating and Allen and I wrote a

number of papers together [e.g. Hall

and Minton, 2002; Hall and Minton,

2003; Hall and Minton 2004]. Largely

due to Allen’s encouragement I was

able to publish a number of single

author papers on various topics related

to my main research [Hall, 2001; Hall,

2002: Hall, 2003]. Two that I found to

be of particular interest concerned

novel aspects of macromolecular

crowding [Hall, 2002] and tubulin

assembly kinetics [Hall, 2003]. As is my

research preference (and was drilled

into me during my PhD training) both

works involved a combination of

experimental and theory/simulation.

I had long been interested in concepts

associated with reduction in

dimensionality of diffusion search space

as applied to biology. With Kornberg’s

advice still in my mind I wrote a

fellowship application to examine some

of these concepts and left the US in

2003 to begin another new topic, this

IUPAB News #72

New Chief Editor for Biophysical Reviews by Damien Hall

Laboratory of Biochemistry and Genetics, NIDDK, NIH, Bld. 8, Bethesda, MD 20892-0830, USA and Institute for Protein

Research. Osaka University, 3-1- Yamada-oka, Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.

6

time at the Department of Chemistry

within the University of Cambridge UK.

My Human Frontiers Science Program

Fellowship was carried out in the newly

established Biophysical Laboratory

headed by Prof. Christopher M. Dobson

(My sincere condolences to Chris’s

family and close friends upon his recent

passing ). My time in Chris’s laboratory

was interesting as it was my first time

being in a mega-lab (spread across

three departments with altogether

about 50 postdoctoral scientists and

PhD students). Upon starting out Chris

asked me to help out two scientists

who had been there for a few years

without yet publishing their work. This

request had quite an impact on my life

for a number of reasons. Of the two

requested interactions, one led to one

of my most highly cited articles [Carulla

et al. 2005] whilst the other let me

meet and work with the person who

would later become my wife and

mother of my four children (Hall, Hirota

and Dobson, 2004). Furthermore these

two interactions got me seriously

interested in the subject of measuring

and modeling amyloid kinetics, of which

I was perhaps first proponent within

the greater Dobson group [Hall and

Edskes, 2004]. Riding the customarily

required rusty bicycle around town I

really enjoyed my time working in

Cambridge and was genuinely grateful

to Chris for allowing me the chance to

perform some fundamental research,

both by myself and as part of a larger

team [Hall and Edskes, 2004; Hall and

Minton, 2005; Hall, 2005; Hall, Hirota

and Dobson, 2005; Carulla et al. 2006;

Hall and Dobson, 2006]. At the

conclusion of my fellowship my new

family (now consisting of four) decided

to move to Japan.

For the majority of my time in Japan I

worked as a Tokubetsu Assistant

Professor within the Institute for Basic

Medical Science at the University of

Tsukuba. During that time, I was block

funded by the Japanese Science and

Technology agency (JST), working

within a program called the Wakate

Initiative for Young Scientists’

Independent Research. This program

provided sufficient funds to allow me

to maintain a laboratory composed of

myself and one research assistant for

five years. At that time I titled my

laboratory research theme as ‘Physical

Biochemistry of Disease’, a designation

which I have maintained to the

present. Although a little on the lonely

side, this period of my life was a

fantastic opportunity, as the core

funding aspect allowed me to

concentrate and plan my work over a

longer time horizon than normal. This

period also gave me the freedom to

research a number of disparate topics,

such as those related to complex

diffusion patterns within the cell [Hall,

2008a; Hall and Hoshino, 2009; Hall,

2010], factors affecting virus

adsorption [Hall, 2008b] and subtle

aspects of amyloid biology [Hall and

Hirota, 2009; Hall and Edskes, 2009;

Hall 2012; Sasahara et al. 2010; Hall

and Huang, 2012; Hall and Edskes,

2012]. It was also during this period

that I began my association with

Biophysical Reviews, first through the

publishing of two review articles [Hall

and Hoshino, 2009; Hall and Edskes,

2012] and then later, at the invitation

of the Chief Editor Jean Garnier, by

becoming an Editorial Board Member

in 2010. During my time in Japan I

made acquaintances with many

fantastic Japanese scientists, with one

of particular note being Prof. Fumio

Arisaka, for whom the journal recently

ran a Special Issue for his 70th birthday

[Arisaka, 2018; Hall et al. 2018a].

The day after I arrived back from

attending the US Biophysical Society

Meeting in 2011 the largest earthquake

to ever hit Japan occurred just as I was

dozing off with jet lag at my desk. This

time I was not the only one to run out

of the building after the shaking began.

Waiting outside, I and my fellow

building residents literally fell over as

the ground shook and the buildings

around us buckled, cracked and split

apart. Needless to say, it was quite

scary. After the shaking stopped I raced

home to my very (very) old house with

a sense of complete dread but was

extremely glad to meet my petrified

family (now we consisted of six) all

assembled in the parking lot. Less than

an hour later a giant tsunami,

generated by the earthquake, struck

the coastal regions of the northeast

face of Japan, causing the tragic deaths

of nearly 20,000 people. A few days

later a number of nuclear power plants

located in the neighboring prefecture of

Fukushima exploded. For a few months

things were a little tense. Nevertheless,

largely due to the admirable resilience

of the Japanese people, a calm

emerged and within a year or two

things began to return to something

resembling normal. Six days after the

earthquake I picked up my first (very

brave) Masters student, Mr. Phuong

Nam Nguyen, from the airport. Two

years later (and just in time for Nam to

graduate [Nguyen 2013]) my Wakate

Fellowship at the University of Tsukuba

finished, after which I and family

returned to Australia, whereupon I took

up a Senior Research Fellowship at the

IUPAB News #72

7

Research in Japan, I took an opportunity

provided by the ORISE Institute from

the US Department of Energy made

available to Senior Scientists working in

STEM type areas of research. Located

within the National Institute for

Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney

Disease, Laboratory for Biochemistry

and Genetics, I currently work as an

ORISE Established Scientist investigating

the transmission properties of yeast

prions using a mixture of computational

modelling and transmission/cryo-

electron microscopy.

Conclusion: The year of 2019 has to

date been quite busy. After accepting

the invitation to become the new Chief

Editor in January, I began the year by

setting up the journal’s social media

program and have, since then,

shepherded four Issues to press. Aside

from journal related duties, moving

countries and getting a research project

started, I have used my spare time to

write and publish a few articles [Hirota

et al. 2019; Wakayama et al. 2019; Hall

2019]. Despite being quite busy, it is

nevertheless, still very much a privilege

to be associated with the Biophysical

Reviews journal. The core twin missions

of the journal are to,

(i) invite and facilitate the publication of

topical reviews in biophysics by leading

experts in the field, and

(ii) help develop and promote

biophysical research around the world,

particularly within developing areas,

These are aims that I genuinely support

and practically speaking, these outlined

goals are ones that Biophysical Reviews

can play a very effective role in

actualizing. Having been associated with

the journal for nearly a decade, I have

benefitted from the practical (and often

humorous) training provided by the two

previous Chief Editors (Jean Garnier and

Cris dos Remedios) on how to

effectively combine pragmatism with a

pursuit for excellence. This year I have

received much valuable advice, help

and support from the journal’s

Executive Editors and Editorial Board

Members. To date, I have enjoyed my

working interactions with the IUPAB

President (Marcelo Morales) and

Secretary General (Juan Carmelo Gomez

-Fernandez) and look to continue this

good working relationship with the

IUPAB Executive, going forward, into

the future.

In closing, I would like to encourage the

reader who may be interested in writing

a review article, to make contact with

either myself, or a Member of the

Editorial Board, to discuss their idea and

to talk about realistic schedules for

submission. Our aim is to seek out those

with something to say and who can say

it well, giving them ample time to do so.

When English is a problem, the

Biophysical Reviews Editorial team will

frequently pitch in and help, so that we

can suitably canvass the widest array of

international input to the journal.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Prof. Juan Carmelo

Gomez-Fernandez for the invitation to write

this short piece introducing myself to

readers of the IUPAB Newsletter. I would

like to acknowledge the Institute for Protein

Research at Osaka University for continuing

remarkable support. I gratefully

acknowledge the US Government for funds

provided in the form of an ORISE Established

Scientist Position carried out at the NIDDK.

This research was supported in part by an

appointment to the National Library of

Medicine (NLM) Research Participation

IUPAB News #72

Australian National University. Although

sorry to say goodbye to Japan, the next

adventure awaited in Canberra.

After being in Japan for so long,

returning to Australia in 2013 was both

a pleasure and a definite culture shock!

Whereas Japanese scientists were

almost culturally mandated to not

complain, to be modest and to

downplay their research abilities and

success, Australian-based scientists and

students suffered none of these failings.

Working within the Research School of

Chemistry I was part of the Section on

Biological Chemistry. Soon after

starting, I was offered an Associate

Professor position at the Institute for

Protein Research at Osaka University in

Japan. During my time at ANU I juggled

these two positions by working for up to

half of each year in Japan. This situation

made it difficult to run a normal

laboratory but nevertheless I somehow

managed to successfully supervise one

PhD student, Dr. Nicholas Ray [2017]

and one Masters student, Mr. Ran Zhao

[2018] as well as a number of Honours

and undergraduate project students.

Whilst in Australia I continued with my

research theme on the ‘Physical

Biochemistry of Disease’, but tailored

the projects to ones I could carry out

whilst shuttling between a dedicated

protein research facility in Japan and a

chemistry department in Australia.

Some examples of my research at this

time include [Hall et al. 2014; Hall et al.

2015; Hall et al. 2016; Dalpadado et al.

2016; Hall, 2017; Hall et al. 2018; Zhao

et al. 2016; Hall et al. 2018b].

Present Day: I concluded my Senior

Research Fellowship at the Australian

National University at the end of 2018.

Retaining my Guest Associate Professor

status at the Institute for Protein

8

Polymerization Kinetics. Analytical Biochemistry

345,198-213.

Carulla N., Caddy GL, Hall D.R., Zurdo J., Gairi M.,

Feliz M., Giralt E., Robinson C.V., and Dobson C.M.

(2005) Molecular recycling within amyloid fibrils.

Nature. 436, 554-8.

Hall D. and Dobson C.M. (2006) Expanding to fill

the gap: a role for inert biopolymers in regulating

the macromolecular crowding effect. FEBS Letters

580, 2584-2590.

Hall D. (2006) A role for protein self-association in

the fine tuning of the macromolecular crowding

effect. European Biophysics Journal. 35, 276-280.

Hall D. (2008a) The effect of local surface

roughness on the analysis and interpretation of

single particle tracking (SPT) microscopy

measurements. Analytical Biochemistry. 377, 24-

32.

Hall D. (2008b) Kinetic Models of Biospecific

Interactions at Surfaces. Chapter 4 of ‘Handbook

of Surface Plasmon Resonance Based Biosensors.

Royal Society of Chemistry. Eds. A. Tudos and R.

B.M. Schasfoort.

Hall D. and Edskes, H. (2009) A model of amyloid's

role in disease based on fibril fracture. Biophysical

Chemistry. 145, 17-28.

Hall D. and Hirota, N. (2009) Multi-scale modelling

of amyloid formation from unfolded proteins

using a set of theory derived rate constants.

Biophysical Chemistry. 140, 122-128.

Hall D., and Hoshino, M. (2010) Effects of

macromolecular crowding on intracellular

diffusion from a single particle perspective.

Biophysical Reviews. 2, 39-53.

Sasahara K., Hall D., and Hamada, D. (2010) Effect

of lipid type on the binding of lipid vesicles to islet

amyloid polypeptide amyloid fibrils. Biochemistry.

49, 3040-3048.

Hall D. (2010) Effect of heterogeneity on the

characterization of cell membrane compartments:

I. Uniform size and permeability. Analytical

Biochemistry. 398,230-244.

Hall D., and Edskes, H. (2012) Computational

modeling of the relationship between amyloid

and disease. Biophysical Reviews 4, 205-215.

Hall D. and Huang, L. (2012) On the use of size-

exclusion chromatography for the resolution of

mixed amyloid-aggregate distributions (I).

Analytical Biochemistry. 426, 69-85.

Hall D. (2012) Semi-automated methods for

simulation and measurement of amyloid fiber

distributions obtained from transmission electron

microscopy. Analytical Biochemistry. 421, 262-

277.

Hall D., Li, S., Yamashita, K., Azuma, R., Carver, J.

A., & Standley, D. M. (2014) A novel protein

distance matrix based on the minimum arc-length.

Biophysical Chemistry, 190, 50-55.

Hall D., Edskes H., Kardos J., Carver J.A., and Goto

Y. (2015) Multi-Pathway Perspective on Protein

Aggregation: Implications for the Rate and Extent

of Amyloid Formation. FEBS Letters. 589, 672-9.

Hall D., Li S., Yamashita K., Azuma R., Carver J. A.,

& Standley D. M. (2015) RNA-LIM: A Novel

Procedure for Analyzing Protein / ss-RNA

Propensity Data. Analytical Biochemistry 472, 52-

61.

Hall, D., Zhao, R., So, M., Adachi, M., Rivas, G.,

Carver, J.A. and Goto, Y. (2016) Recognizing and

analyzing variability in amyloid formation kinetics.

Analytical Biochemistry, 510, 56-71.

Zhao R., So M., Maat H., Ray N., Arisaka F., Goto

Y., Carver J.A. and Hall D. (2016) Measurement of

amyloid formation by turbidity assay—seeing

through the cloud. Biophysical Reviews, 8, pp.445-

471.

Hall D., Zhao R., Dehlsen I., Bloomfield N.,

Williams S.R., Arisaka F., Goto Y., and Carver J.A.

(2016) Aggregate turbidity: Simulation of turbidity

profiles. Analytical Biochemistry, 498, 78-94.

Hall, D. (2017) A composite polynomial approach

for analyzing the indefinite self-association of

macromolecules studied by sedimentation

equilibrium. Biophysical Chemistry, 228, pp.10-16.

Hall, D. (2017) Innovations in publication: free

sharing of all Biophysical Reviews’ content.

Biophysical Reviews, 9, 67-68.

Hall, D., Takagi, J. and Nakamura, H. (2018a)

Foreword to ‘Multiscale structural biology:

biophysical principles and mechanisms underlying

the action of bio-nanomachines’, a special issue in

Honor of Fumio Arisaka’s 70th birthday.

Biophysical Reviews, 10, pp. 105–129.

Hall D., Kinjo A. and Goto Y. (2018b) A new look at

an old view of denaturant induced protein

unfolding. Analytical Biochemistry, 542, pp.40-57.

Hirota N., Edskes H., and Hall D. (2019) Unified

theoretical description of the kinetics of protein

aggregation Biophysical Reviews 11(2), 191-208.

Wakayama R., Uchiyama S., and Hall D. (2019)

Ionic liquids and protein folding—old tricks for

IUPAB News #72

Program. This program is administered by

the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and

Education through an interagency

agreement between the U.S. Department of

Energy (DOE) and the National Library of

Medicine (NLM). ORISE is managed by ORAU

under DOE contract number DE-SC0014664.

All opinions expressed in this paper are the

author's and do not necessarily reflect the

policies and views of NLM, DOE, or ORAU/

ORISE.

References

Hall D. (1999) Optical biosensor studies of protein

adsorption: measurement and theory. (PhD

Thesis). University of Queensland. https://

espace.library.uq.edu.au/view/UQ:365892

Hall D. (2001) Use of optical biosensors for the

study of mechanistically concerted surface

adsorption processes. Analytical Biochemistry.

288, 109-125.

Hall, D., and Minton, A.P. (2002) Effects of inert

volume excluding macromolecules on protein

fiber formation (I) equilibrium models. Biophysical

Chemistry. 98, 93-104.

Hall D. (2002) On the role of macromolecular

phase transitions in biology in response to

changes in solution volume: action as an entropy

buffer. Biophysical Chemistry. 98, 233-48.

Hall D., and Minton A.P. (2003) Macromolecular

crowding: qualitative and semi-quantitative

successes, quantitative challenges. Biochimica et.

Biophysica Acta. 1649, 127-139.

Hall D., and Minton A.P. (2004) Effects of inert

volume-excluding macromolecules on protein

fiber formation. (II.) Kinetic models for nucleated

fiber growth. Biophysical Chemistry. 107, 299-316.

Hall D. (2003) The effects of denaturation of

tubulin on the characterization of its

polymerization behavior. Analytical Biochemistry.

104, 655-682.

Hall D., and Edskes H. (2004) Silent prions lying in

wait: a two-hit model of prion/amyloid formation

and infection. Journal of Molecular Biology. 336,

775-86.

Hall D., Hirota N., and Dobson C.M. (2005) A toy

model for determining the rate of amyloid

formation from denatured protein. Journal of

Molecular Biology. 351, 195-205.

Hall D., and Minton, A.P. (2005) An Examination of

the Use of Turbidity as a Marker of Tubulin

9

Modifications on the Stability and Function of

Human Eye Lens Crystallins. (PhD Thesis). The

Australian National University. https://

openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/

handle/1885/104582

Winzor, D.J., (2016). Six decades of research in

physical biochemistry. Biophysical Reviews, 8(4),

pp.279-281.

Zhao R. (2018) Analysis of turbidity progress

curves from protein aggregation reactions. (MSc

Thesis). The Australian National University.

https://openresearch-repository.anu.edu.au/

handle/1885/145876

appointment of a Chief Editor who

would in turn be responsible for

determining the constitution of the

Editorial Board and setting the

academic course for the journal.

The starting directive for Biophysical

Reviews was clearly enunciated by the

founding Chief Editor, Dr. Jean Garnier,

in his opening Editorial [Garnier, 2009],

‘Biophysical Reviews is dedicated to

publishing short and critical Reviews

written by key figures in the field. The

aim of the Editorial board is that the

subjects covered in these Reviews will—

over the long term—be representative

of the entire field of biophysics,

generally defined as the science of

describing and understanding biological

phenomenon using the concepts and

techniques of physics. In other words,

biophysics is to physics as biochemistry

is to chemistry.’

Jean served as the first Chief Editor of

Biophysical Reviews from 2009 to 2014

(Fig. 1). During this establishment

phase, the journal published four Issues

per year with four to six review articles

per Issue. Overall, this meant that the

journal was producing twenty high-

quality review articles (around 200

printed pages) per year. Looking

through these early articles one notes

the excellent support provided by the

Biophysical Reviews’ Editorial Board and

the IUPAB Council Members who

showed great confidence in the journal

by publishing their work within it.

Dr. Cristobal dos Remedios (Fig. 1) took

over as Chief Editor in 2014 and set

about instituting a number of reforms

to assist with the expansion and

development of the journal. Chief

amongst these changes were; (i)

Increasing the number of Issues

IUPAB News #72

new solvents. Biophysical Reviews 11(2), 209-225.

Hall, D., (2019). On the nature of the optimal form

of the holdase‐type chaperone stress response.

FEBS letters. (in press). https://

doi.org/10.1002/1873-3468.13580

Minton A.P. (2013) A brief look back at 45 years of

research in physical biochemistry. Biophysical

Reviews, 5(2), pp.61-62.

Parry G.D. (1981). The meanings of r-and K-

selection. Oecologia, 48(2), pp.260-264.

Ray N.J., (2017) The Effects of Age-Related

revenue for IUPAB.

(ii.) Act as a publishing vehicle to help

execute IUPAB’s goals for the

promotion of biophysics based

education and research.

The net result of these deliberations

was the formation of Biophysical

Reviews, a journal dedicated to

publishing biophysics related content in

a topical review format. Established in

2009, Biophysical Reviews was set up as

a profit sharing partnership between

IUPAB and the Springer Corporation.

Under the terms of the joint agreement,

the Springer publishing group was

responsible for the publishing

infrastructure (e.g. physical publishing

equipment, maintenance of journal

website) and management of the

journal (through the employment of a

Journal Manager, a number of

professional production staff and a

dedicated Editorial Assistant) whereas

IUPAB was responsible for the

Published by Springer-Nature

Corporation, Biophysical Reviews is the

official journal of IUPAB. Starting with

its inception in 2009 the journal has

evolved from a low volume quarterly,

publishing 30 review articles a year, to

its current six-issue per year format,

publishing 125 articles per year. As of

2019 Biophysical Reviews is one of the

top-ranked journals in the world for

biophysics related content [Scimago

2019]. Here I provide a short history of

the journal and conclude with a look to

the future, outlining some plans for

consolidation and extension of the

impressive growth made to date.

A Short History of Biophysical Reviews

In 2008 IUPAB formed an exploratory

committee for the creation of its own

journal. The motivation behind this

push for a new journal was twofold, it

would;

(i.) Provide a mechanism for raising

Biophysical Reviews: Past, Present

and Future by Damien Hall

Laboratory of Biochemistry and Genetics, NIDDK, NIH, Bld. 8, Bethesda, MD 20892-

0830, USA and Institute for Protein Research. Osaka University, 3-1- Yamada-oka,

Suita, Osaka 565-0871, Japan.

10

[Hall, 2017]. In plain terms, SharedItTM

is a web link to a pdf copy of the

published Biophysical Reviews’ article

housed on the ReadCubeTM website,

which is only available for online

perusal i.e. it cannot be printed or saved

by a third party (unless it is also an open

access article). Available to all authors

and coauthors, the SharedItTM link can

be freely posted online by anyone

anywhere – potentially affording

maximum exposure to an authors’

article. To help kick start this maximum

exposure potentiality, the Biophysical

Reviews’ social media program

prominently features the SharedItTM

link in an Issue summary video housed

on the journal’s comment disabled

YouTubeTM channel. Each article in the

video summary is then further

highlighted and cross-promoted via

individual tweets emanating from the

journal’s TwitterTM account. These

initial entries into the online world can

be used directly by the authors to both

prime and bolster promotional activities

for their article made by themselves, or

by interested second parties through

the involvement of institutional, public

or commercial media services. The

details for the journal’s social media

accounts are as follows:

Biophysical Reviews’ YouTube Channel

Biophysical Reviews’ Twitter Account:

@BiophysicalRev1

Moving on to 2020, the journal will

undertake two further ventures. The

first involves a National Biophysical

Society partnership program in which

IUPAB News #72

in the field.

With regard to the

journal matters this

year has been a busy

one with four Special

Issues and two regular

Issues planned and a

number of significant

changes being

implemented. One of

these major changes

has been the

commissioning of a

large number of Issue

specific Commentaries

and bespoke Editorials/

sub-Editorials. This has

provided an extra

dimension to the

journal by adding some

human interest to the

science being

discussed. Hopefully

this will help to further

make the journal into

something to be

perused cover to cover

(so to speak). A second

major change has been

the establishment of a

social media program

designed to provide

post-publication

exposure for both the

articles appearing

within, and causes

promoted by, the

journal. This social

media arm has been

designed to exploit

SharedItTM, the

principal component of

the online content

sharing program

instituted by Springer

published each year

from four to six; (ii)

Increasing the amount

of single-themed

Special Issues

published each year to

half of the total

number of Issues. By

the end of Cris dos

Remedios’s term as

Chief Editor (2014-

2019) these two

reforms had helped to

grow the journal to its

current state in which

it publishes around 120

articles per year,

producing

approximately 1000

pages of content [dos

Remedios, 2016].

Present and Future

After serving as the

journal’s Deputy Editor

for four years, in early

2019 I was invited by

the IUPAB Executive to

become the third Chief

Editor of Biophysical

Reviews (Figure). In

this section I first

outline the present

state of the journal,

briefly reviewing the

activities and contents

of the current year. I

then describe some

future plans that, going

forward, promise to

help further

consolidate Biophysical

Reviews’ position as

one of the top journals

Three Chief Editors of

Biophysical Reviews:

Damien Hall, 2019- (Top), Cris

dos Remedios 2014-19 (Middle)

Jean Garnier 2009-14(Bottom)

11

journal websites, that are designed to

add value to the open access fee. In

general, both routes offer the author

very suitable publishing outcomes.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank the IUPAB Secretary

General Prof. Juan Carmelo Gomez-

Fernandez for the invitation to write this

short piece introducing Biophysical Reviews

to readers of the IUPAB Newsletter. I would

like to thank the Institute for Protein

Research at Osaka University for continuing

remarkable support. I gratefully

acknowledge the US Government for funds

provided in the form of an ORISE Established

Scientist Position carried out at the NIDDK.

This research was supported in part by an

appointment to the National Library of

Medicine (NLM) Research Participation

Program. This program is administered by

the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and

Education through an interagency

agreement between the U.S. Department of

Energy (DOE) and the National Library of

Medicine (NLM). ORISE is managed by ORAU

under DOE contract number DE-SC0014664.

All opinions expressed in this paper are the

author's and do not necessarily reflect the

policies and views of NLM, DOE, or ORAU/

ORISE.

References

Scimago (2019) Elsevier Journal Ranking Site

https://www.scimagojr.com/journalrank.php?

category=1304

dos Remedios C.G. (2016) The evolution of

Biophysical Reviews. Biophysical Reviews. 8 (1)

pp. 1-3.

Garnier J. (2009) Editorial. Biophysical Reviews. 1

(1) pp. 1-2.

Hall D. (2017) Innovations in publication: free

sharing of all Biophysical Reviews’ content.

Biophysical Reviews. 8 (2) pp. 67-68.

IUPAB News #72

The hyperlinks to the journal’s main

website, the submission portal and the

instructions to authors are shown

directly below.

Journal Website

Submission Portal

Instructions for Authors

Cost is always an important thing to

keep in mind when seeking to publish

one’s work. Biophysical Reviews

operates on a hybrid open access model

and as such offers two tracks of page

charges. The first track is completely

free. On this track the article will be

held behind a paywall for six to twelve

months before becoming freely

available for download from PubMed.

However, the authors will immediately

receive a personal pdf copy, as well as a

SharedItTM link to their article which

they are free to distribute/post

wherever they like (e.g. their website,

TwitterTM etc.). A description of the

SharedItTM concept and the

advantages it offers to the authors has

been previously described within the

journal [Hall, 2017]. As a majority of

centers of higher learning carry the

Springer-Nature academic catalog

package (of which Biophysical Reviews

is a part) the paywall aspect is not a

feature that tends to affect most

readers working at a scientific

institution, but instead tends to come

into play for those trying to download

an article from a home network/coffee

shop etc. The second track involves the

payment of an open access fee of about

2500 Euros. The open access route

makes the article immediately freely

available to anyone, irrespective of their

location and also benefits from a

number of Springer cross-promotional

activities, across their various scientific

the journal will devote one Special Issue

slot each year to highlight the structure

and activities of a particular country’s

biophysical society. I would like to thank

the Executive Committee of the

Biophysical Society of Japan for

agreeing to be the first to engage this

partnering role. The second major

initiative for the coming year is the

expansion of the Editorial Board to

make it both larger and more

representative of the world’s

population centers and institutes

carrying out biophysical research. So if

you receive an email asking if you would

consider joining the Editorial Board of a

journal … please don’t reach for the

delete button too quickly, it could be

Biophysical Reviews reaching out to

you.

How to publish in Biophysical Reviews

In closing, I would like to leave the

readers with an idea of how they might

make a contribution to the journal. As

Biophysical Reviews operates on an

invitation to publish basis, in general

any article should first be discussed with

the Chief Editor or Member of the

Editorial Board prior to submission.

With this said, the journal accepts

articles comporting to one of five

general formats.

(i) Short Review (3,000-4,000 words, ~3

figures)

(ii) Long Review (10,000 words, ~10

figures)

(iii) Letter (300-600 words on a scientific

topic)

(iv.) Commentary (200-400 words on an

event, happening or opinion)

(v.) Editorial (no set format)