ROCKVILLE, MD – The Biophysical Society is pleased to announce that Suckjoon Jun, PhD, Associate Professor at the University of California, San Diego will receive the Michael and Kate Bárány Award. Jun will be honored at the Society’s 66th Annual Meeting, being held in San Francisco, California from February 19-23, 2022.

Jun is being recognized for his groundbreaking research on the biophysical mechanisms of bacterial cell size control. His efforts have overturned a fifty-year-old paradigm on how this coordination is achieved in bacteria. Jun’s analysis led him to propose the concept of the “adder”, which posits that cells add a fixed amount of new material regardless of their birth size. This was a finding of fundamental and wide importance and the concept of the “adder” now dominates the field.

“The Biophysical Society is committed to creating opportunities for researchers to advance their scientific careers,” said BPS President Frances Separovic, University of Melbourne, Australia. “Suckjoon is a brilliant quantitative scientist who has had a profound influence on understanding the coordination between growth and division of cells. We are excited to follow his career and achievements in future.”

About the Award – The Michael and Kate Bárány Award for Young Investigators recognizes an outstanding contribution to biophysics by a person who has not achieved the rank of full professor at the time of nomination. In recognition of the endowment gift from Michael and Kate Bárány, the award was renamed in 1998.