Biophysical Society Names 2025 Society Award Recipients

Newswise — ROCKVILLE, MD – The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2025 Society Awards. These awards are very competitive in nature and are intended to recognize Society members for excellence in biophysics. The winners will be honored at the Society’s 69th Annual Meeting being held in Los Angeles, California from February 15-19, 2025.

The 2025 Agnes Pockels Award in Lipids and Membrane Biophysics is given to Janice L. Robertson of Washington University in St. Louis, for her work advancing the experimental and computational study of membrane protein oligomerization in membranes, including identifying critical driving forces and regulation of stability by ions and lipids.

The 2025 Anatrace Membrane Protein Award is given to Paula J. Booth of King's College London for continuing pioneering contributions to our understanding of the biophysics of membrane protein folding, particularly folding kinetics.

The 2025 BPS Award in the Biophysics of Health & Disease is given to Elizabeth A. Jonas of Yale University School of Medicine for her groundbreaking research in biophysics and neuroscience and her continuous service to the Biophysical Society's Bioenergetics, Mitochondria, and Metabolism Subgroup.

The 2025 Michael and Kate Bárány Award is given to Hernan G. Garcia of the University of California, Berkeley for his outstanding contributions to quantitative developmental biology and his creative use of advanced microscopies and theory to characterize and follow transversally the control of transcription in the Drosophila embryo.

The 2025 Carolyn Cohen Innovation Award is given to Daniel R. Larson of the Center for Cancer Research, National Cancer Institute within the National Institutes of Health, his pioneering contributions to the field of gene regulation using single-cell and single-molecule biophysical methods that encompass advances in both theoretical and experimental methods which have resulted in specific advances in our understanding of transcription, splicing, and gene regulation.

The 2025 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award is given to Doreen Matthies of Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National Institutes of Health for her research investigating transmembrane proteins by cryo-EM, including discovering structures of key magnesium channels and transporters.

The 2025 BPS Early Independent Career Award is given to Christopher O. Barnes of Stanford University as an outstanding young investigator who combines structural methods with in vivo approaches to translate knowledge of viral-host interactions into developing therapeutics and vaccines against zoonotic viruses.

The 2025 Founders Award is given to Devarajan Thirumalai of The University of Texas at Austin for developing and applying theoretical concepts and novel simulations to solve a bewildering array of problems in biophysics for 30 years.

The 2025 Emily M. Gray Award is given to Silvia Cavagnero of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for developing courses, innovating instructional methods, mentoring students at all levels, and promoting diversity in biophysics.

The 2025 Kazuhiko Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics is given to Scott C. Blanchard of the St. Jude Children's Research Hospital for expanding the reach of single-molecule fluorescence approaches to reveal the dynamics of complex biological systems, including translating ribosomes and membrane proteins.

The 2025 Klaus Schulten and Zaida Luthey-Schulten Computational Biophysics Lecture Award is given to James A. Glazier of the Indiana University, Bloomington for his development of algorithms, software, and models describing the emergent multicellular organization of development, homeostasis, and disease. 

The 2025 Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award is given to Hugo Lachuer of the Institut Jacques Monod (CNRS) for discovering that spatial pattern of lysosomal exocytosis is controlled by membrane tension gradients.

The 2025 Outstanding Doctoral Research in Biophysics Award is given to Nadab Wubshet of the University of Michigan and Harvard University for outstanding contributions to the study of the mechanics of actin cytoskeleton in cells and encapsulated in giant vesicles.

The 2025 PUI Faculty Award is given to Elizabeth A. Yates of the United States Naval Academy for pioneering biophysical research in bio-inspired materials toward the development of deployable underwater adhesives and tirelessly working to improve the curriculum for USNA's chemistry majors.

The 2025 Ignacio Tinoco Award is given to Gilad Haran of the Weizmann Institute of Science for his many contributions to developing novel spectroscopic methods and applying them to provide new insights into a wide range of problems in protein dynamics and function

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The Biophysical Society, founded in 1958, is a professional, scientific society established to lead an innovative global community working at the interface of the physical and life sciences, across all levels of complexity, and to foster the dissemination of that knowledge. The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its Annual Meeting, publications, and outreach activities. Its 7,000 members are located throughout the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry.