Vol. 18 / No. 11 / December 2019 THE MEMBER MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY ANTS in the lab Get a decision before your flies emerge. At 18°C, Drosophila take 19 days to eclose. JBC takes only 17 days on average to reach first decision about your paper. (Don’t worry, we don’t make our reviewers work at 18°C.) Learn more about fast, rigorous review at jbc.org. www.jbc.org NEWS FEATURES PERSPECTIVES 2 34 56 EDITOR’S NOTE ANTS IN THE LAB NIGHT SHIFT Ending an elemental year Using social insects to study e nightlife of a scientist–mother 3 behavior and aging PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE 42 Beware the unintended consequences OXYGEN SENSING AND ALTITUDE of mandatory open access Semenza shares 2019 Nobel Prize 5 48 MEMBER UPDATE GIFT GUIDE 34 10 RETROSPECTIVES 10 Roberta F. Colman (1938 – 2019) 14 Sydney Brenner (1927 – 2019) 18 NEW MEMBERS 42 56 20 LIPID NEWS Crystal building blocks of triglycerides 21 YEAR OF (BIO)CHEMICAL ELEMENTS Rounding out the year with nickel and zinc 22 JOURNAL NEWS 22 Tor comes to the fore in autophagy ANNUAL MEETING 24 Paving the way for disease-resistant rice 25 Secrets of fat and the lymph node 26 When prions are personal 51 28 From the journals 2020 MEETING TO HIGHLIGHT JLR JUNIOR ASSOCIATE EDITORS RAY BLIND .................................................... 52 ON THE COVER ROTONYA CARR ............................................. 53 A carpenter ant climbs on the bud of a native sleepy hibiscus at Sweetbay Natural Area in BRANDON DAVIES ......................................... 54 Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. BOB PETERSON/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS GISSETTE REYES–SOFFER ............................ 55 DECEMBER 2019 ASBMB TODAY 1 EDITOR’S NOTE THE MEMBER MAGAZINE OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR BIOCHEMISTRY AND MOLECULAR BIOLOGY Ending an elemental year OFFICERS COUNCIL MEMBERS Gerald Hart Suzanne Barbour By Comfort Dorn President Joan Broderick Matt Gentry Toni M. Antalis Blake Hill President-elect Audrey Lamb eaders of a certain age may is a teacher, and she o ered to write Wei Yang James M. Ntambi remember Tom Lehrer’s song a series of articles for ASBMB Today Secretary Takita Felder Sumter Kelly Ten–Hagen R“ e Elements,” in which the highlighting elements of signi cance Joan Conaway JoAnn Trejo Treasurer then-Harvard math professor and in the biochemical realm. ASBMB TODAY EDITORIAL musical satirist patter-sang, a la Gil- ere’s nothing an editor likes EX-OFFICIO MEMBERS ADVISORY BOARD bert and Sullivan, the name of every better than the promise of a timely Robert S. Haltiwanger Rajini Rao element in the periodic table. series (and guaranteed content), so Carla Koehler Chair Co-chairs, 2020 Annual Ana Maria Barral When I was a musical theater I was delighted, but Quira gave us Meeting Program Committee Natasha Brooks nerd in high school, I co-directed a something more than that. As regu- Kelly Chacón Cheryl Bailey musical revue in my senior year. e lar ASBMB Today readers know, she Chair, Education and Beronda Montgomery Professional Development Bill Sullivan other directors and I thought we had has provided a wonderfully coherent Committee Melissa Vaught Binks Wattenberg the whole thing precast, but during series of lessons that clearly explain Daniel Raben auditions, a hitherto unremarkable everything from where the elements Chair, Meetings Committee ASBMB TODAY Sonia Flores singer bowled us over with her rendi- originate to their roles in human Angela Hopp Chair, Minority A airs Executive Editor tion of this serious tongue twister. (I’ll health. Every month, I’ve looked Committee [email protected] link to a video of Lehrer singing it on forward to learning something new Nicole Woitowich Comfort Dorn the ASBMB Today website so you can from this series. And on page 21 of Chair, Science Outreach and Managing Editor Communication Committee [email protected] hear for yourself how impressive this this issue, with nickel and zinc, I’m Terri Goss Kinzy Lisa Schnabel was.) We borrowed a lab coat and a sad to see it end. Chair, Public A airs Graphic Designer Advisory Committee wall-sized copy of the periodic table is month may mark the end [email protected] Ed Eisenstein John Arnst from the school’s science department of the (bio)chemical elements in Chair, Membership Committee Science Writer to hang behind her. At every perfor- ASBMB Today, but plans are afoot Susan Baserga [email protected] mance, that song brought the house to build educational programs Chair, Women in Biochemistry Laurel Oldach and Molecular Biology Science Writter down. e big chart disappeared after around these 11 articles — complete Committee [email protected] closing night, and one of my fellow with experiments. If this resource Sandra Weller Ed Marklin Chair, Publications Web Editor directors either had to pay for it or would be useful to you or any of Committee [email protected] forfeit her diploma. your colleagues, contact Quira at Lila M. Gierasch Allison Frick Editor-in-chief, JBC Multimedia and Social Media at was the last time I thought [email protected]. A. L. Burlingame Content Manager about the periodic table until an anks to all our readers for [email protected] Editor, MCP ASBMB Today planning meeting celebrating the International Year of Barbara Gordon Nicholas O. Davidson Executive Director late last year when Quira Zeidan, the the Periodic Table with us — and Editor-in-chief, JLR [email protected] society’s education and public out- thank you, Quira, for being as cool a Kerry-Anne Rye Editor-in-chief, JLR reach coordinator, told us that 2019 teacher as Tom Lehrer. was the 150th anniversary of the year For information on advertising, contact Pharmaceutical Comfort Dorn Media Inc. at 212-904-0374 or [email protected]. Dmitri Mendeleev rst published his ([email protected]) is the tabular display of the elements. managing editor of ASBMB She wasn’t just sharing science Today. Follow her on Twitter @cdorn56. trivia. In her heart of hearts, Quira www.asbmb.org/asbmbtoday PRINT ISSN 2372-0409 CORRECTION Articles published in ASBMB Today re ect solely the authors’ views and not The Lipid News article in the November issue contained incorrect terminology. the o cial positions of the American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology or the institutions with which the authors are a liated. Mentions of It should have stated that platelet activating factor is a plasmanylcholine. products or services are not endorsements. 2 ASBMB TODAY DECEMBER 2019 PRESIDENT’S MESSAGE Beware the unintended consequences of mandatory open access By Gerald Hart n 2018, a group of research While the American Society for Plan S: “e Funders do not support funding organizations with the Biochemistry and Molecular the ‘hybrid’ model of publishing. Isupport of the European Re- Biology favors moving toward However, as a transitional pathway search Council, or ERC, launched a model where scientific towards full Open Access within a cOAlition S, a plan to require full clearly dened timeframe, and only as literature is freely available to open access to published research part of transformative arrangements, papers on work they had funded. everyone (open access), the Funders may contribute to nancially eir mandate: “With eect fact remains that someone supporting such arrangements.” from 2021, all scholarly publica- has to pay for the reviewing, If open access for nal versions of tions on the results from research redaction, quality control papers is mandated across the board, funded by public or private grants and eventual publication of libraries will no longer need to pay provided by national, regional and to subscribe to journals. In the U.S., research findings. international research councils and all costs of publication will need to funding bodies, must be published be borne by authors, generally from in Open Access Journals, on Open direct costs from grants. e cost to Access Platforms, or made immedi- ble, Open Access publication fees are authors to publish likely will increase ately available through Open Access covered by the Funders or research substantially. Repositories without embargo.” institutions, not by individual re- Mandated open access benets Most major funding agencies in searchers; it is acknowledged that all for-prot publishers, several of whom Europe have endorsed this plan. researchers should be able to publish already are making lots of money While the American Society for their work Open Access.” from open-access journals. ese Biochemistry and Molecular Biol- us far, U.S. funding agencies, publishers, especially the so-called ogy favors moving toward a model such as the National Institutes of high-impact journals and their where scientic literature is freely Health and the National Science cascade journals, can receive exor- available to everyone (open access), Foundation, have not adopted Plan bitant funds to publish a paper, and the fact remains that someone has S, but it seems likely that open access the more papers they publish, either to pay for the reviewing, redac- eventually will become mandatory in the parent journal or its cascade tion, quality control and eventual worldwide for scientic literature. siblings, the more money they make. publication of research ndings. ASBMB journals are already open One side eect is that the quality Under the current system, most access. In the Journal of Biological of publications might drop because publication costs (at least in the Chemistry, the Journal of Lipid more money is to be made by pub- U.S.) are born by library subscrip- Research, and Molecular & Cellu- lishing more papers. tions, helping keep authors’ costs to lar Proteomics, the papers in press, In contrast, complete open access a minimum. At U.S. universities, or PIPs, go online the day they are likely will have a deleterious eect on library subscriptions are paid by accepted, and they remain online for scientic societies, and small societ- indirect costs (nance and account- free indenitely.