Bethesda, MD — The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce the recipients of its 2009 Society awards. The eight recipients will receive their awards at the Society's 53rd Annual Meeting on Monday, March 2, 2009 at the Boston Convention and Exhibitions Center in Massachusetts. The awardees are:
Robert Stroud of the University of California, San Francisco, will receive the Anatrace Membrane Protein Award for his outstanding contributions to transmembrane biology, and pioneering new methods allowing membrane proteins to become tractable as structural methods.
Stephen H. White of the University of California, Irvine, will receive the Avanti Award in Lipids for his novel findings in the areas of membrane structure and protein insertion into membranes.
Three candidates have been selected to share the Margaret Oakley Dayhoff Award. They are Teresa Giraldez of the Hospital Universitario Nuestra Señora de Candelaria for her for impressive accomplishments in the use of patch fluorometry to advance the understanding of ion channels; Adrienne Fairhall of the University of Washington, for her excellent work in the field of adaptation in neural codes and leadership in advancing training in computational neuroscience; and Jin Zhang of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine for her outstanding contributions to the field of quantitative FRET and fluorescence imaging as applied to cell signaling.
Keiichi Namba of Osaka University will receive the Biophysical Society Founders Award for his multi-faceted biophysical achievements and innovative studies of the mechanisms of self-assembly, conformational switching, and movement of vital macromolecular complexes.
Gaudenz Danuser of The Scripps Research Institute will receive the Michael & Kate Bárány Award for Young Investigators for his outstanding seminal contributions in diverse areas of cell biology, particularly to our understanding of cell cytoskeleton dynamics and function using speckle microscopy.
Julio Fernandez of Columbia University will receive the 2009 U.S. Genomics Award for Outstanding Investigator in the field of Single Molecule Biology for advancing the frontier of single molecule biology through the invention of force clamp spectroscopy, polyprotein ruler domains, and the measurement of forces affecting chemical reactions.
The Biophysical Society, founded in 1956, is a professional, scientific society established to encourage development and dissemination of knowledge in biophysics. The Society promotes growth in this expanding field through its annual meeting, monthly journal, and committee and outreach activities. Its 8200 members are located throughout the U.S. and the world, where they teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry. For more information on the society or the 2009 Annual Meeting, visit www.biophysics.org.