Biophysical Society Bulletin | October 2025

Society Awards

BPS Honors Sixteen Outstanding Biophysicists

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Jorge Alegre-Cebollada , Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Car diovasculares (CNIC), Spain, will receive the Michael and Kate Bárány Award for pioneering the study of protein mechanics in living systems, revealing how mechanical forces govern protein function and contribute to human disease. Nuria Assa-Munt , Center for Scientific Review, National Institutes of Health, USA, will receive the Rosalba Kamp man Distinguished Service Award for her tireless efforts and exemplary leadership in setting the highest standards for NIH reviews, advancing biophysics research, and training the next generation of scientists. Charles L. Brooks III , University of Michigan, USA, will receive the Klaus Schulten and Zaida Luthey-Schulten Computational Biophysics Lecture Award for his pioneering work in protein folding, free energy methods, and service to the field of bio physics. Ashley R. Carter , Amherst College, USA, will receive the PUI Faculty Award for her remarkable contributions to biophysics research, mentoring of undergraduate students, and leader ship in guiding the next generation of scientists to advance the field of biophysics. Yifan Cheng , University of California San Francisco, USA and Howard Hughes Medical Institute, USA, will receive the Ana trace Membrane Protein Award for broad and impactful con tributions to the field of membrane protein structural biology, and for structural work delineating the gating mechanisms of TRP channels. Wonhwa Cho , University of Illinois Chicago, USA, will receive the BPS Award in the Biophysics of Health and Disease for mechanistic elucidation of lipid-protein interactions founda tional to lipid-targeted drug discovery. Cornelis (Cees) Dekker , Delft University of Technology, The Netherlands, will receive the Kazuhiko Kinosita Award in Sin gle-Molecule Biophysics for groundbreaking contributions to the field of nanobiology and single-molecule biophysics, from nanopores to SMC molecular motors. Ken A. Dill , Stony Brook University, USA, will receive the Founders Award for his work on the protein folding problem and the development of statistical mechanical theories and foundational principles in biophysics.

Elizabeth Hinde , School of Physics, University of Melbourne, Australia, will receive the Michael and Kate Bárány Award for the creative application of physical principles to biological systems, particularly in the development of spatiotemporal correlation spectroscopy and fluorescence lifetime imaging techniques to investigate chromatin dynamics. Yiechang Lin , The Australian National University, Australia, will receive the Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award for advancing our understanding of how lipid-protein interactions affect function. Erdinc Sezgin , SciLifeLab, Karolinska Institutet, Sweden, will receive the Early Independent Career Award for combining chemistry, physics, biology, and computer science to gain fun damental and translational insights into how the biophysics of cells affect health and disease. Kai Sheng , Scripps Research, USA, will receive the Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award for pioneering new approaches to elucidate the mechanism of bacterial ribosome assembly and for constructing a comprehensive structural map for the large subunit assembly. Hawa Racine Thiam , Stanford University, USA, will receive the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award for being a trailblazer of subcellular biophysics and unveiling new paradigms of bio physical immunology through her dynamic measurements of physical forces on organelles in real time. Sarah Veatch , University of Michigan, USA, will receive the Agnes Pockels Award in Lipids and Membrane Biophysics for foundational scientific research understanding the miscibility phase transition and associated critical phenomena in mem branes and for the rigorous application of these biophysical concepts to cellular processes. A. Joshua Wand , Texas A&M University, USA, will receive the Ignacio Tinoco Award of the Biophysical Society for pioneering contributions to understanding the structural and mechanistic bases of biomolecular function. Jie Xiao , Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA, will receive the Carolyn Cohen Innovation Award for her pioneering work in developing single-molecule imaging and analysis approach es to investigate the molecular and cellular mechanisms of bacterial cell division and transcription.

October 2025

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