Susy C. Kohout, Associate Professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University, began to love science starting in high school when she took her first chemistry class. Her passion for chemistry led her to pursue a bachelor’s degree in organic chemistry at the California Institute of Technology, where she also discovered biophysics in her senior year. She continued her education, earning a PhD at the University of Colorado Boulder in biochemistry with a certificate in biophysics. She now specializes in understanding how electrical signaling is translated into chemical signals inside cells.
Susy C. Kohout grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, but was born in the Dominican Republic. Her family immigrated to the United States when she was 14 months old. Her father is from Argentina and her mother is from Germany. She and her sisters were all born in different countries. “My father got his PhD in Agricultural Economy,” she says, “but if he had had more choices, he would have been an engineer. My oldest sister is also a scientist in biotech.”
“My interest in combining electrical and chemical signaling started back in undergrad when I took an electrophysiology lab with Dr. Henry Lester. I already knew that I loved the chemistry side, but cell signaling, and membrane potential, were new and exciting,” she explains. “I did a short postdoc with my PhD advisor, Dr. Joe Falke, working on bacterial chemotaxis,” Kohout shares. “My main postdoc was in Dr. Udi Isacoff’s lab working on a newly discovered voltage regulated protein, the voltage sensing phosphatase (VSP). Before VSP, only channels were thought to be controlled by voltage sensing domains (VSDs). VSP proved that VSDs are truly modular and can even control an enzyme. Specifically, VSP has direct control over phosphatidylinositol phosphate (PIP) signaling cascades by changing the PIP concentrations in a voltage-dependent manner.” She adds, “The discovery of VSP was perfect timing for me since VSP uses the type of signaling that interests me. During my postdoc, I identified a mechanism for VSD coupling to the enzyme and discovered that this coupling is potentially regulated by substrate and modulates enzyme activity. These findings paved the way for a structural analysis where I worked with structural biologists, Dr. Lijun Liu and Dr. Dan Minor, who solved several different crystal structures of the cytosolic phosphatase domain of VSP.” Building on those discoveries, Kohout helped generate models of activity derived from those structures and then tested those models using activity assays in live cells. Those activity assays revealed that the VSP mechanism of coupling is analogous to channel gating. She also determined that VSP can function as a monomer with voltage changes inducing a series of conformational changes that affect enzymatic activity.
Kohout is currently an Associate Professor in the Biomedical Science Department at Cooper Medical School of Rowan University (CMSRU). Her lab is split into two main areas: biophysics and physiology. She explains, “On the biophysics side, there’s a lot we don’t understand about how VSP works. Our current focus is on how dimerization impacts function. While I showed that VSP functions as a monomer during my postdoc, once I started my own lab, we discovered that VSP can also dimerize in a concentration-dependent manner. Oligomerization is well known to change how enzymes function, and we believe VSP is no different. Understanding how VSP dimers versus VSP monomers function is critical for being able to follow up other open questions in the field, like how lipids modulate VSP and even how we can use parts of VSP to create new tools like genetically encoded voltage indicators.”
The biggest challenge of Kohout’s career thus far has been when her department at her previous institution was dissolved while she was going up for tenure. Her department was moved into another without much notice. She recalls, “We were told less than five minutes before a campus-wide email was sent announcing the decision. We were all stunned. Nothing in my training had prepared me for such an event. My department had supported me from the beginning of my time there, patiently answering all my questions from how to order equipment to how to be a good mentor, to how to be a good teacher and engage students in the classroom. They mentored me, advised me, helped me do experiments, shared resources with me; I can’t emphasize enough how much they helped my career, including getting tenure. Having that network completely dissolved from one day to another, for reasons that did not make sense to any of us, was very challenging. Many of those colleagues left after we were dissolved.” Kohout recounts, “While our ‘new’ department welcomed us, the entire situation left me feeling unsupported…I tried to make things work anyway. I volunteered for new departmental service, continued my established service, kept research going, acquired funding, kept teaching…overall tried to be a good citizen. But the sense that I didn’t matter at my institution never went away. I finally realized I couldn’t make myself matter. I could only control my own actions, not those of others. So, I looked for other faculty positions, even looking for non-academic positions. I love being a professor. I love research; I enjoy teaching. I did not want to give all that up, but at the end of the day, I had to feel like my actions could make a difference. In the end, I was lucky. The right faculty position opened up at CMSRU and now I’m back to feeling like what I do matters.”
On the contrary, Kohout shares that her most rewarding aspect of her work is getting an experiment to work. “Seeing the data come alive is very satisfying. It’s also very satisfying to see someone else collect the data, to see their joy in the moment. Or when a student, who has been struggling to see how the pieces fall together, figures out the whole picture. These are all deeply rewarding aspects of my work,” Kohout declares.
She shares that her favorite thing about biophysics is the broad range of topics that fall under the category. She details, “I have changed topics a few times since my first BPS meeting, but I still do biophysics because of how I address my scientific questions. Learning new techniques, being quantitative, being open to different interpretations of the same data: these are all the things I love about biophysics.” When asked to share her thoughts on how she sees biophysics going in the future and what she hopes to contribute to biophysics, Kohout stated: “Diversity. I am a member of the Sociedad de Biofisicos Latinoamericanos (SOBLA), where we highlight and celebrate science from all Latin Americans. I really enjoyed and support the Black in Biophysics Symposium and the JUST-B Poster sessions at the 2023 BPS Annual Meeting. I was part of a group that wrote a Maximizing Opportunities for Scientific and Academic Independent Careers (MOSAIC) Institutionally Focused Research Education Award to Promote Diversity (UE5) grant for BPS with the goal to pair K99 awardees with professional societies to improve their professional development and networking opportunities while enhancing the diversity of the scientific workforce. While we did not get the grant, this is something I believe BPS should continue to focus on. I would like us to get to the point where separate symposiums, poster sessions, mentoring programs, and the like aren’t needed. We aren’t there yet, and I hope to help move us in that direction.”
When not doing science or working in her lab, Kohout loves to hike and wander around in the wilderness. If she were not a biophysicist, she would do something related to plants since gardening is a serious hobby. She proclaims, “I love growing plants—particularly edible plants, and ones with medicinal properties…I also like propagating plants…For example, I’ve been propagating the same African violet for a couple of decades now. I give away the progeny when I end up with too many pots, just to then start the whole cycle again. I often end up as a plant rescuer, reviving dying plants for others or taking over their care entirely.”
Kohout has been a long-time member of the Biophysical Society and engages with the community through volunteering. She claims that BPS has supported her throughout her career: “I admit to not realizing how many resources were available to me as a graduate student, but I did discover them as a postdoc. Sessions on funding, how to handle interviews, panels with scientists just one or two steps ahead ready to give advice and suggestions…These have all been extremely helpful, particularly during my transition from postdoc to assistant professor.” She goes on to note, “I find the community created by the Biophysical Society to be both special and useful. The Annual Meeting has so many ‘beyond science’ sessions that it’s hard to make it to all the ones I’m interested in and see all the science I want to see. BPS is definitely my “home” society.”
Her advice to those just starting their careers in biophysics is that everyone’s path is different. Kohout tells us, “Twists and turns always happen, and I almost changed careers several times. When I started down my path of studying chemistry, I wanted to do something I loved doing. That always felt like my primary motivation. Later, I realized that I needed to feel like I mattered. I only realized this when I lost that feeling. So, I had to make some choices on how to get it back. There were a lot of different paths that could get me there. None of them were ‘right’ and none of them were ‘wrong.’ The world is not so clear-cut even if we want it to be…Identify what you want and then figure out how to get there. Ask for help if you are struggling with the decision or how to get there. No one can make those types of decisions for you, but understanding your options is critical. You might be surprised that some options are easier than you expect.”