Judy Kim
University of California, San Diego
Editor, Proteins
Biophysical Journal
What has been your biggest “aha” moment in science?
I don’t have a single, big “aha” moment in science or research. Instead, there have been numerous small, intriguing findings that have led us to specific paths towards larger discoveries. The foundation for all discoveries, big and small, is high quality, reproducible data. When you perform any experiment, you are likely to acquire data that you are eager to interpret. But we need to be careful that the data reflect the molecular processes of interest as opposed to, say, a side-reaction from an impurity. [Though, the realization that the data reflect sample impurity is still an important part of the scientific process.] So I would say that the closest thing to “aha” moments is when, after substantial effort and control experiments, we finally acquire data that is the highest quality we can reasonably obtain. With data we trust, we can continue along the productive path towards impactful scientific discoveries.
At a cocktail party of non-scientists, how would you explain what you do?
I like to take apart the phrase “molecular biophysics” and describe my research as the combination of physics (in terms of the tools), biology (in terms of the scientific motivation), and molecules/chemistry (in terms of the players in the scientific stories). As the cocktail party continues, I can describe the quest to reveal Nature’s secrets for optimizing reactions that are fundamental to life, such as movement of charge across long distances (electron transfer) and assembly of the basic components of all cells (protein folding).