Read more
About the author
After completing studies for the A.B., A.M., and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry at Harvard University, David W. Christianson joined the faculty of the University of Pennsylvania, where he is currently the Roy and Diana Vagelos Professor in Chemistry and Chemical Biology. At Penn, Christianson’s research focuses on the structural and chemical biology of the zinc-dependent histone deacetylases as well as enzymes of terpene biosynthesis. His research accomplishments have been recognized by several awards, including the Pfizer Award in Enzyme Chemistry and the Repligen Award in Chemistry of Biological Processes from the American Chemical Society, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and the Elizabeth S. and Richard M. Cashin Fellowship from the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. Christianson is also a dedicated classroom teacher, and his accomplishments in this regard have been recognized by the Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching at Penn and a Rhodes Trust Inspirational Educator Award from Oxford University. Christianson has also held visiting professorships in the Department of Biochemistry at Cambridge University and the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology at Harvard University. Christianson has served with Prof. Anna Pyle as Co-Editor-in-Chief of Methods in Enzymology since 2015.
Tobias Baumgart is a professor in the Chemistry Department of the University of Pennsylvania. An experimental biophysical chemist at heart, he focuses on understanding how both lipids and proteins, as well as the continuum mechanics of bilayer assemblies determine membrane function. Baumgart obtained his Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) and the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, in 2001. He was a postdoctoral research associate with Watt Webb, Gerald Feigenson, and Barbara Baird at Cornell University in Ithaca, before becoming an Assistant Professor in 2005, and a full professor in 2017. He was on the Biophysical Journal’s Editorial Board between 2013 and 2019. He is a recipient of the Alfred P. Sloan and NSF CAREER awards, as well as the Dennis M. DeTurck and Charles Ludwig awards for distinguished teaching. EditMarkus Deserno is a professor in the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University, where he works in the field of theoretical and computational biophysics. He focuses on lipid membranes and proteins, using a wide spectrum of techniques that range from coarse-grained molecular dynamics simulations up to differential geometry, continuum elasticity, and statistical field theory. Deserno received his Ph.D. from the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research (MPI-P) in Mainz, Germany, in 2000. After graduation, he held a postdoctoral research position in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at UCLA, followed by a group leader position back at the MPI-P. In 2007 he joined the Department of Physics at Carnegie Mellon University, where he got tenured in 2011 and became Full Professor in 2016. Between 2014 and 2020 Deserno served on the Editorial Board of the Biophysical Journal. He is an elected Fellow of the American Physical Society and received the Thomas E. Thompson Award of the Biophysical Society. Edit
