Canan Atılgan, member of Sabancı University Faculty of Engineering and Natural Sciences (FENS), is assuming important international roles in the field of biophysics.
Canan Atılgan has started to act as Turkish ambassador of the American Biophysical Society’s (BPS) Ambassador Program. Assuming the role for a period of three years, Atılgan introduces the BPS’ events and the Ambassador Program to Turkish scientists, and promotes the program during various events organized by student congresses and clubs in Turkey. Pointing out that career programs for students attracted particular attention, Canan Atılgan said the following: “Every year I attend BPS Annual Meetings. Our next meeting will be held in February 2022. I also take part in planning committees of the BPS. Biophysics is a field beyond biology and physics; it is an inclusive, inter-disciplinary field that can be attractive for students with various backgrounds ranging from computer science to materials science, and from chemistry to mechanical engineering. If we can introduce this field to young talents at an early stage of their careers and guide them to research in this field, we can offer them a path where they can be involved in breakthrough discoveries in fields such as drug design, molecular biology, new materials discovery and even the design of new experimental characterization methods”.
To continue to develop biophysics as an inclusive, interdisciplinary international field, the Ambassador Program will create a global network of BPS members. They will serve as local Society contact points in their specific-countries or regions to promote the field and foster conversations around biophysics. Ambassadors will play a key role in providing the Society with relevant local content to share with membership and will serve as BPS’s go-to person in their local region. Through this program, the Society hopes to further develop its advocacy efforts and to grow the biophysics network around the world by educating and inspiring talents to pursue careers in biophysics.
In addition, Canan Atılgan recently assumed a role on the editorial board of Proteins: Structure, Function and Bioinformatics journal. One of the most prestigious scientific journals in the world, Proteins is a monthly publication established in 1986 by Cyrus Levinthal, who is amongst the forefathers of the field of molecular biology. The journal covers research on all areas of protein research, including structure, function, computation, genetics, and design. Canan Atılgan acts as an editor of articles in the field of computational biology and those at the intersection of experimental and theoretical methods. Atilgan herself has been publishing her research in the journal since 2001.