ROCKVILLE, MD – The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2020 Society Awards. These awards are very competitive in nature and are intended to recognize Society members for excellence in biophysics. The 2021 winners will be honored at the Society’s 65th Annual Meeting, being held virtually, February 22-26, 2021. The recipient and the reason that individual is being recognized is listed below for each award.
The 2021 Anatrace Membrane Protein Award is given to Nieng Yan of Princeton University, for her seminal contributions to our structural understanding of the molecular mechanisms of membrane protein function and modulation.
The 2021 Avanti Award in Lipids is given to Richard Pastor of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at the National Institutes of Health, for his pioneering MD Simulations of lipids and development of widely used lipid forcefields.
The 2021 BPS Award in the Biophysics of Health & Disease is given to Andrea Meredith of the University of Maryland School of Medicine, for her biophysical discovery of BK channel behavior that has resulted in translational medicine advances in the treatment of epilepsy.
The 2021 Innovation Award is given to Gregory A. Voth of the University of Chicago, for his theoretical and computational methodologies that enable understanding of the behavior of complex systems including membrane-protein interactions, transport, and self-assembly.
The 2021 Emily M. Gray Award is given to Doug Barrick of the Johns Hopkins University, for his textbook on Biomolecular Thermodynamics which is being widely adopted for teaching undergraduate Biophysical Chemistry.
The 2021 Founders Award is given to Angela M. Gronenborn of the University of Pittsburgh, for her many contributions to the field of NMR protein structure determination with a particular emphasis on their functional dynamics.
The 2021 Ignacio Tinoco Award is given to Peter H. von Hippel of the University of Oregon, for his long-standing contributions to our understanding of nucleic acids and their interactions.
The 2021 Kazuhiko Kinosita Award in Single-Molecule Biophysics is given to Carlos Bustamante, of the University of California, Berkeley, for his leadership in the field of single-molecule studies of DNA elasticity and molecular motors and for his generosity in outreach and collaboration.
The 2021 Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award is given to Randy Stockbridge of the University of Michigan, for her pioneering and innovative contributions to our understanding of fundamental paradigms in ion channel and transporter biology.
The 2021 Michael and Kate Bárány Award for Young Investigators is given to Tanja Mittag of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital for her rigorous and foundational contributions to the field of macromolecular condensates and their biological relevance.