3/16/2011
Hannah DeBerg, a graduate student in physics, has been selected to participate in the 61st Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany in June. Twenty-five Nobel laureates are expected for this year’s meeting, along with 550 young researchers from 70 countries.
Written by
Hannah DeBerg, a graduate student in physics, has been selected to participate in the 61st Meeting of Nobel Laureates in Lindau, Germany in June. Twenty-five Nobel laureates are expected for this year’s meeting, along with 550 young researchers from 70 countries.
The Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings, held annually since 1951, bring together Nobel Prize winners and young scientists from around the world to exchange ideas, discuss future projects, and build international relationships. DeBerg is one of about 80 US participants for the 2011 Lindau Meeting.
The focus of this year’s meeting will be on physiology and medicine, although laureates from all Nobel fields of science will participate. A separate Lindau meeting is held for economists. “It’s especially meaningful for me to go to the 2011 meeting,” said DeBerg, “as my research is in biological physics.”
DeBerg, who works with Paul Selvin’s group in the Center for the Physics of Living Cells at the University of Illinois, uses single-molecule fluorescence microscopy to investigate the structure and behavior of membrane proteins in mammalian cells. Specifically, she studies the so-called “ion channel” proteins—pore-forming macromolecules that open and close to regulate the flow of chemical compounds through the membranes of all cells.
Ion channels are key “gatekeepers” in many biological processes that involve rapid changes in cells, and defects in ion-channel proteins are linked to many human diseases, including epilepsy, cystic fibrosis, and some types of heart disease.
“I love working with cells in vivo,” said DeBerg. “It’s fascinating to watch something so small move and change. It’s a very exciting time to be a physicist; to apply the tools of physics to the explosion of knowledge in quantitative biology.”
DeBerg said her interest in physics was sparked when she received a copy of Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History in Time as a birthday present, and continued under the influence of a “fantastic” high school physics teacher. She received a bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Arkansas in 2007. DeBerg received a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, also in 2007.
______________________
Writer/Contact: Celia M. Elliott, Department of Physics, 217/244-7725.
Photo: Toni Pitts, Department of Physics.
If you have any questions about the College of Engineering, or other story ideas, contact Rick Kubetz, editor, Engineering Communications Office, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 217/244-7716.