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 Outstanding Thesis Research Prize celebrates originality, scientific rigour, and impact within the broad field of biophysics. It is open to Australian Society for Biophysics members who are in the final year of their PhD candidature or within 12 months of degree conferral at the application closing date.
Unlike the Emerging Biophysicist Award, which considers an applicant’s overall early-career track record, assessment for the Outstanding Thesis Research Prize is based solely on research undertaken during the thesis period. Applicants may nominate a thesis chapter, published paper, or coherent body of work, with assessment focusing on scientific excellence, conceptual or technical innovation, and contribution to the field of biophysics.
Finalists present their research at the ASB Annual Meeting, where the quality of both the research and its communication are assessed. Consideration is also given to engagement with the biophysics community during candidature, including collaborative activities, student initiatives, and involvement with the Australian Society for Biophysics.
The prize is awarded annually and includes a cash prize of $500. The 2026 award represents the inaugural year of this new prize, and the Society welcomes feedback from members as the revised awards program is 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.
Presentation Requirement
Service and Engagement
Consideration will be given to engagement with the biophysics community during candidature, including collaborative activity, student initiatives, or ASB involvement.
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