image: Prof. Ralph Adolphs, Director of the Emotion and Social Cognition Lab, Caltech, USA, and President of the Jury of the BIAL Award in Biomedicine
Credit: Photo credits: BIAL Foundation
Nominations for the BIAL Award in Biomedicine 2025 are open until June 30. Challenging organised groups of scientists to nominate outstanding papers, the neuroscientist Ralph Adolphs (Caltech, USA), President of the Jury, underlines the significant increase in the award amount to €350,000 and its growing reputation as a prelude to the Nobel Prize. He highlights the award's altruistic nature and unique criteria, which continue to elevate the global recognition and impact of groundbreaking biomedical research.
This is a somewhat altruistic award because those who nominate can never win. What arguments do you have to convince potential nominators to choose the most relevant paper in Biomedicine in the last 10 years?
Ralph Adolphs - I would like to think that in this respect all scientists are indeed altruistic. We get joy from seeing our colleagues acknowledged and are grateful for philanthropy in the field of Biomedicine in general.
After two co-authors of the article that won the BIAL Award in Biomedicine 2021 were later honoured with the Nobel Prize in Medicine, do you think this award may be considered the Pre-Nobel? Is that an advantage because of its prestige, or does it set the bar so high that it's intimidating?
RA - The Jury was naturally pleased to see that the Nobel Committee subsequently agreed with our selection when we decided on the 2021 BIAL Award in Biomedicine. But the BIAL Award will always have its own independent selection that, first and foremost, stays true to the mission of the BIAL Foundation: to identify the very best biomedical research over the past 10 years that has both basic science and clinical impact. Those criteria are distinct from other prizes, and the prestige of the BIAL Award in Biomedicine needs no comparison to other prizes to confirm its value and quality.
What mandatory criteria must a paper fulfil to enter the pool of those eligible for this Award?
RA - It is important for scientists who intend to nominate a work to closely read the guidelines. The BIAL Award in Biomedicine is for a paper, not a person, and it must be an empirical (research) peer-reviewed article that is not only of outstanding quality but also of clear translational (clinical) impact. Excluded would be, for example, review articles, articles on BioRxiv that are not yet peer-reviewed, or basic research studies that do not articulate a compelling clinical impact. Included would be peer-reviewed outstanding research studies in an animal model that, in their discussion section, make a very compelling case for the translational relevance of the work (so, explicit research in humans is not required, although it certainly helps).
In this fourth edition, the value of the prize has risen to 350,000 euros. How do you think this Award contributes to boosting the valorisation of research in Biomedicine internationally?
RA - I am very grateful that the BIAL Foundation decided to increase the award amount, and this will certainly have a positive impact both on its visibility and on the impact in biomedicine, where ambitious science is becoming more and more expensive to conduct all the time.
The latest edition registered a considerable increase in nominations compared to the previous edition and the expectations remain high for the 2025 edition. How did the jury view the challenge of analysing 70 articles in an area as wide-ranging as Biomedicine?
RA - I and the Jury are looking forward to an ever-increasing number of submissions for the BIAL Award. It is so important to point out that, no matter how excellent a study might be, it cannot possibly be considered if it is not nominated in the first place. So, we invite any organised group of scientists, such as a university, society, academy, or research institute to nominate a paper. The Jury has no difficulty evaluating a larger number of submissions, work that we will do beginning already in July 2025, and culminating in two days of closed-door discussions in November.
Nominations and more information here.