BETHESDA, MD – The 35 winners of the annual Student Research Achievement Awards (SRAA) were recognized at the 70th Biophysical Society Annual Meeting Awards Ceremony on February 23, 2025. These students were selected by judges from the Society’s Subgroups for their outstanding presentations during the poster competition. One hundred and thirty-eight students participated in the competition.
The 2026 SRAA winners are:
Bioenergetics, Mitochondria and Metabolism Subgroup
Sarah Crotzer, New Mexico Tech, USA – “In Silico Mutagenesis Reveals Residues That Modulate ATP Synthase Transmembrane Domain Leak Channel Behaviors”
Bioengineering Subgroup
Avisekh Pal, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), India – “Label-Free Identification of Bacteria and Beads via Micropore Translocation Dynamics”
Helena Miljkovic, EPFL, Switzerland – “SICM as a Novel Tool: From Single-Protein Detection to Material Properties of Biomolecular Condensates”
Biological Fluorescence Subgroup
Himanshi Devi, Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati, India – “Lysine Succinylation in Charge Rich Proteins Measured Using a Novel Label Free Tool”
Biopolymers in vivo Subgroup
Yu-Huan Wang, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, USA – “Fluorescence Imaging of Gene Loci in Escherichia Coli Reveals Marker Size-Dependent Dynamics and Spatially Heterogeneous Chromosome Confinement”
Tommaso Inzani, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy – “Polymer Conformational Entropy as Driver of Complex Coacervation”
Channels Receptors and Transporters Subgroup
Sarah Luise Schmidt, Paul Scherrer Institut, Switzerland – “Unravelling Rapid Kinetics Driving Human Daylight Vision”
Brice Durocher, University of Iowa, USA – “Structural Basis of the TOK1 Potassium Channel from Candida Albicans”
Kaei Ryu, Jichi Medical University, Japan – “The Extracellular Turret is Essential for Gating in Both HCN and KV Channels”
Lasse Desdorf, Aarhus University, Denmark – “Structure-Guided Design for NBCN2: Routes to Selective Inhibition”
Arnav Paul, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA – “Mechanistic Insights Into Glucose Transport for PFHT1 from Molecular Dynamics and Graph Attention Models”
Cryo-EM Subgroup
Vinh Truong, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, USA – “Structural Basis of End Recognition and Pairing by Cut-and-Paste Transposons”
Haley Johnson, Baylor College of Medicine, USA – “Basehunter, a New Approach to Determining DNA Sequence in Cryo-Electron Density Maps, Reveals DNA Sequence-Dependent Capture of Gyrase”
Intrinsically Disordered Proteins Subgroup
Virginia Jiang, Princeton University, USA – “Development of a Multiscale Framework for Engineering Protein Condensates as Microreactors”
Nicholas Razo, Washington University in St. Louis, USA – “Dynamic Time Warping for Sequence Alignments”
Macromolecular Machines and Assemblies Subgroup
Alana Gudinas, Stanford University, USA – “Ion-Selective Structural Transitions of a Disordered Repeats-in-Toxin Protein Domain”
Martin Yepes, Johns Hopkins School of Medicine, USA – “Substrate Binding Sites and Conformational Dynamics of the Bacterial Peptidoglycan Synthase Complex”
Luke Johnson, University of Leeds, UK – “Single-Molecule Fluorescence Provides Insights into the Rate-Limiting Step in BAM-Mediated OMP Folding”
Mechanobiology Subgroup
Natalie Rogers, University of Michigan, USA – “Mapping the Lipid Environment of Structures that Sense Plasma Membrane Tension”
Membrane Fusion, Fission and Traffic Subgroup
Ana Paula Vargas Ruiz, University of California Berkeley, USA – “A Fret-Based Molecular Tension Sensor Reveals Actin-Driven Force Dynamics in Clathrin-Mediated Endocytosis”
Anelise Hutson, Case Western Reserve University, USA – “Structural Insights into Regulation of Mitochondrial Fission”
Membrane Structure and Function Subgroup
Melissa Hübschen, University of Freiburg, Germany – “Excipients vs. Lipophilic Plasma Components: Investigation of the Binding Mechanism of Lipids, Fatty Acids and Detergents with Human Serum Albumin”
Daryna Sputay, University of Virginia, USA – “The Functional Role of Localized Plasma Membrane Scrambling in Immune Cell Activation”
Membrane Transport Subgroup
Peixuan Yu, Michigan State University, USA – “Structure and Functional Characterization of the Human Prostaglandin Transporter (PGT)”
Sarah McGuinness, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA – “Computational Scanning of Pore-Lining Residues in Claudin-15 Ion Channels and their Effect on Channel Selectivity”
Motility and Cytoskeleton Subgroup
Adam Decker, University of Michigan, USA – “Resolving the Organization and Dynamics of Membrane-Proximal Actin in Live Cells”
Maryum Irshad, University of Cincinnati, USA – “A Machine Learning Approach to Extracting Protein-Protein Binding Energies from Molecular Dynamics Simulations”
Nanoscale Approaches to Biology Subgroup
Yongsuk Lee, KAIST, Korea – “Molecular Contact Map of Biomolecular Condensates Shows Connectivity Giving Rise to Mechanical Properties”
Nicole Voce, Northeastern University, USA – “Molecular Biophysics: a Quantum Sensing Approach”
Physical Cell Biology Subgroup
Shi Yu William Guo, Scripps Research Institute, USA – “Developing an Assay to Quantitatively Measure Protein-RNA Interactions in the Cellular Context”
Yuyi Zhang, University of California San Diego, USA – “The Endoplasmic Reticulum as an Intracellular Transport Hub - From Contact Sites to CA²⁺ Refill”
Single-Molecule Forces, Manipulation and Visualization Subgroup
Alyssa Gonneville, University of Tennessee, USA – “Single-Molecule Visualization of Function-Related Dynamics of the Human Stimulatory G-Alpha Protein”
Peter Murray, Johns Hopkins University, USA – “Light-Activated Crispr for On-Demand Perturbation of Chromatin Insulators”
Theory and Computation Subgroup
Sophia Alvarez, University of Texas at Dallas, USA – “Rational Sequence Evolution from an Epistatic Model Produces Well Characterized Variants with Specified Antibiotic Resistances”
Bryan Gworek, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA – “Modeling-Informed Experiments Capture ARC-Lipid Interactions Critical to Intercellular Communication”
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