34 BioEssays Vol. 9, No. 1 - July 1988

Biophysics - Theme and Variation : 9th International Biophysics Congress Jerusalem, Israel, 2 C 2 9 August 1987 By Henryk Eisenberg

Biophysics, constituting the physical approach to modern biology, has been essential in scaling some of the magni- ficcnt peaks of human achievement. Molecular biology was born in 1953 when the Watson and Crick DNA double helix was created out of brilliant intuition and an understanding of the newly discovered laws of helical diffrac- tion. Electron microscopy and X-ray and neutron diffraction are the most powerful tools for visualizing biological structures on cellular and molecular levels and nuclear magnetic resonance is quickly becoming a bona fide member of this exclusive club. Gel electrophoresis, based on the physical understanding of the motion of diverse charge-carrying biological particles in restricted spaces under the influence of electric fields, has totally revolutionized the experimental approach to genetics and molecular biology. Theoretical ap- proaches have grappled with the path- ways and time scale of biological evolu- tion, which are not easily derived from simple Darwinian concepts.

The congress, sponsored by the Inter- national Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics, IUPAB, the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Israel Biophysical Society, opened on Monday, 24 August at 10.00 a.m. in the presence of Mr Teddy Kollek, Mayor of Jerusalem, B. Pullman, President of JUPAB, J. Jortner, President of the Israel Academy of Sciences and Human- ities, M. Ottolenghi, Vice President for Research and Development, The Hebrew University, E. Katchalski and M. Sela, Honorary Presidents of the Congress, J. Tigyi, Secretary of JUPAB, H. Eisenberg, Congress Chair- man, and I. Pecht, Congress Secretary- General. Total attendance was 892 participants from 38 countries, includ- ing Europe, North and South America, Africa, the Soviet Union, Japan, China, India, Australia and New Zealand. The number of symposium lectures and oral presentations was 161, and the number of posters submitted was 541. There were five parallel sessions at all times.

The pleasant daytime temperatures and cool Jerusalem evenings made it poss- ible to mix indoor and outdoor activities successfully, thus the posters were ex- hibited in a covered outside area and discussions went on all day in the shaded recreation area, with coffee and tea being in continuous supply.

Altogether there were five plenary lectures, which attracted a large audi- ence. S. Numa, Japan, spoke about the ‘Molecular basis for the function of ionic channels’; E. E. Fesenko, Soviet Union, spoke on ‘Phototransduction in vertebrate photoreceptors : intracellular messenger, ion translocation and signal amplification’; P. Liuger, FRG (The Society of General Physiology Lecture), spoke on ‘Dynamic properties of ion channels and ion pumps’; R .D . Keynes, UK, discussed ‘The molecular mechanism of voltage-gating in sodium and potassium channels’, and A. Klug, UK (The Aharon Katzir-Katchalsky Lecture), discussed ‘The structure of chromatin and related nucleoprotein complexes *.

Other presentations were in 26 Sym- posia, divided into the following groups :

(A) Molecular and Supramolecular Structure : Polymorphism and Function of Nucleic Acids ; Nucleic Acid Ligand Complexes ; Crystallographic Studies of Biological Assemblies ; Structure Deter- mination by Non-crystallographic Methods ; Imaging of Nuclei and Organ- elles ; Molecular Dynamics ; Innovative Microscopic Techniques and Analysis (this very successful symposium was sponsored and organized by L. D. Peachey, USA, and A. Lewis, Israel, on behalf of the Biophysical Society, USA).

(B) Transmembrane Signaling : Membrane Organization and Function; Ion Channels and Cellular Function; Molecular and Electrical Aspects of Synaptic Transmission ; Sensory Transduction ;

(C) Gene Manipulation in Biophys- ics : Molecular Biology of Ion Channels ; Biophysical Techniques and Genetic

Engineering; The Structure of Mem- brane Receptors.

(D) Bioenergy Production and Flow : Biological Electron Transfer Pro- cesses; Ion Driven Processes; Primary Events in Photosynthesis; Diverse Functions of Calcium Ions.

(E) Biophysics of Living Organisms : Metabolic Studies and Medical Diag- nosis by NMR; Mechanochemical Sys- tems in Living Cells; Chemo-, Thermo- and Phototaxis; Halophiles and Ther- mophiles : Adaptation to Extreme En- vironment ; Connective and Mineralized Tissues.

(F) Experiments and Beyond: Arti- ficial Intelligence ; Spatiotemporal Pat- terns in Molecular and Cellular Biology.

(G) Education: Education in Bio- physics (sponsored and organized by W. Fuller, UK, Chairman, the IUPAB Commission on Education and Devel- opment).

In addition, nine highly interesting post-congress meetings took place. Six were in Israel and one each in the FRG, Poland and Hungary : ( 1 ) Cellular Dyn- amics (Joint Meeting of the European Club on Muscle and Motility and the European Cytoskeletal Club), A. Op- latka and B. Geiger, Israel, organizers; (2) Structural Relationships in Con- nective Tissues, W. Traub and s. Sho- shan, Israel, organizers; (3) The Ion Pumps-Structure, Function and Regu- lation, W. D. Stein and S. J. D. Karlish, Israel, organizers; (4) International Workshop on Structural and Func- tional Aspects of the Cholinergic Syn- apse, I. Silman, Israel, organizer; (5) Fundamental Mechanisms of Mem- brane Fusion, R. P. Blumenthal, USA, F. R. Landsberger, USA, and A. Loy- ter, Israel, organizers; (6 ) Dynamics of Photosystem 11, EMBO Workshop, I. Ohad, Israel, organizer; (7) Hermann T r a ~ b l e Symposium on Structure and Dynamics of Phospholipid Bilayers, K. Kaufmann, FRG, organizer; (8) Peptide Conformation in Solutions, A. Bierzynski, Poland, organizer; (9) 9th International Symposium on Bio-

BioEssays Vol. 9, No. 1 - July 1988 35

THIS IS ICSU

electrochemistry and Bioenergetics, L. Kesztel yi , Hungary, organizer.

On the occasion of the IUPAB Biophysics Congress, Trends in Bio- chemical Sciences (TIBS) published a special issue (vol. 12, no. 8, August 1987) devoted to Biophysics. The intro- duction was written by H. Eisenberg and a copy of the issue was presented to each Congress participant. A special issue of Biophysical Chemistry is in the press now and contains 21 full-size articles by Congress Symposium speak-

ers. Special editors of this issue were congregated in a worthy and satis- G. Navon, Congress Scientific Program factory cause. We express our sincerest Organizer, and H. Eisenberg. wishes to Canada and New Zealand for

Since the conclusion of the Congress the success of the congress and satellite we have had a large number of letters to be held in 1990 and to Hungary for expressing satisfaction with the event. It the success of the 1993 congress. is not possible to reach perfection but the organizers, supported by IUPAB Council, worked hard to achieve a

In particular we are pleased that, at this international event, scientists and stu-

satisfactory scientific and social event.

dents from all parts of the world

"No thanks, Sire There are too many stnngs attached lo Government money '* I

Apology

It has come to our attention that an article we published last year by Niza- muddin Ahmed ('Structure and func- tion of chimaeric antibodies', BioEssays 6 , 175-177) bears some striking resem- blances, in several paragraphs and in one figure, to an article published two years previously by Dr Michael Neu- berger in Trends in Biochemical Sciences (' Making novel antibodies by express- ing transfected immunoglobulin genes ', TIBS, September, 1985, pp. 347-349). Unattributed borrowing of written

Reprinted courtesy OMNI Magazine 0 1985

material, in the manner that has appar- ently taken place here, is of course completely unacceptable, and we extend our heartfelt apologies to Dr Neuberger. Although Dr Ahmed's ar- ticle was refereed, as are all our review articles, there is never any guarantee that the referee has seen all the previous literature on the subject, and hence there is no perfect safeguard against plagiarism. In response to our enquiry to Dr Ahmed about the matter he replied that the article had been largely

prepared by a student and that, evi- dently, it was the student who had done the 'adaptation '. This procedure, too, is unacceptable : we expect our authors to be fully responsible for the articles which appear under their names. If someone else has actually prepared most of an article, that person should either be the senior author or, at least, a co-author. Plagiarism by any other name is just as un-sweet.