The Australian Society for Biophysics
The Australian Society for Biophysics
The Australian Society for Biophysics established the Young Biophysicist Award (YBA) in 1995 to recognise and encourage members in the early stages of their careers in biophysics. Shortlisted nominees presented their research at the Society’s Annual Meeting, with the winner announced at the conference closing ceremony and awarded a cash prize of $500. Over the past three decades, many recipients of the Young Biophysicist Award have gone on to successful academic careers in Australia and overseas.
Following a review of the Society’s awards program in 2025, the Executive Committee decided to expand the YBA into two separate awards, with the new structure introduced in 2026. This change allows the Society to recognise excellence at different career stages while ensuring that recent PhD graduates have an award tailored to their achievements.
The two awards are:
The Emerging Biophysicist Award is open to Australian Society for Biophysics members who are within five years of completing their PhD (with appropriate career interruption provisions). Applicants are assessed on their overall track record to date, including research excellence, scientific communication, and contributions to the Australian biophysics community. Finalists present their work at the ASB Annual Meeting, with the award recipient announced during the conference closing ceremony and receiving a $500 cash prize.
The 2026 awards represent the first year of this revised awards program. The Society welcomes feedback from members as these new and updated awards are implemented.
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2025: Ruitao Jin - "2’-O-Methyl-Guanosine 3-Base RNA Fragments Mediate Natural TLR7/8 Antagonism.”
2024: Stefan Mueller - "Directed evolution – one molecule at a time"
2023: Miro Astore - "Probing conformational heterogeneity of TRPV1: A comparison of state-of-the-art methods in cryo-EM"
2022: Lisanne Spenkelink - "Single-molecule genotyping of thousands of variants"
2021: Emile Flood - "Molecular dynamics simulations to elucidate the origins of rapid inactivation in hERG"
2018: Amanda Buyan – “Understanding Piezo1’s Relationship with Lipids”
2016: Evelyne Deplazes – “Phospholipid binding activity of the venom peptides ProTx-I and ProTx-II”
2015: Charles Cox – “Mechanosensitive Gating In Piezo1 Channels”
2013: Chai Ann Ng – “PAS domain of Kv11.1 Channels: Structure, function and clinical significance”
2012: Tamsyn Hilder – “Characterising various inward rectifier potassium channels”
2010: David Szekely – “Toward the virtual heart: graphics processor accelerated interactive simulations of cardiac function”
2009: Megan O’Mara – “Linking bacterial structures to human multi-drug transporter function”
2008: Till Böcking – “Chasing the Mechanism of Clatherin Coat Disassembly by Single Object Fluorescence Imaging”
2007: John Gehman – “Boltzmann-statistics analysis of solid-state NMR experiments”
2006: Catherine Clarke – “A helically structured M1-P1 loop “fine tunes” the pH sensitivity of acid sensitive two-pore domain potassium (TASK) channels”
2005: Ben Corry – “The mechanism of fast gating in ClC chloride channels”
2004: Matthew Perugini – “Hexameric structure of GDP-mannose pyrophosphorylase: a key enzyme and novel drug target in Leishmania”
2002: Louise Brown – “Structure of the Inhibitory Region of Troponin I in the ternary complex by Site-Directed Spin Labeling EPR Spectroscopy”
The conditions of the award are that applicants:
The Society reserves the right to not make an award in any one year.
If a candidate’s nomination is not successful in any given year, the Award Committee will re-consider it the following year, preferably in an updated form.
Once a nomination has been considered in two successive years, it would not normally be considered again in the next one or two years. A maximum of four nominations for a single candidate in a six-year period will be considered by the Award Committee.
The award is assessed on the applicant’s full track record to date, including:
Service and Community Contribution
Applicants should demonstrate appropriate service to the Australian biophysics community, which may include:
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