The award citation highlights Tanner’s discoveries elucidating the biophysical determinants of organ-specific metastasis in a living animal. That phrasing captures a question that has long frustrated cancer researchers: why do tumor cells shed from a primary growth settle and flourish in some organs while failing in others? The prevailing view in oncology has shifted over recent decades from a purely biochemical picture, in which chemical signals and genetic mutations govern the spread of cancer, toward a more integrated framework in which physical forces, tissue architecture, and mechanical properties of the cellular microenvironment play decisive roles. Tanner’s work sits squarely at the heart of this shift, and the Biophysical Society’s decision to honor it underscores how central physics has become to modern cancer research.

Metastasis remains the deadliest phase of cancer, responsible for the majority of cancer-related deaths worldwide. For a tumor cell to seed a new colony in a distant organ, it must complete an extraordinary sequence of steps: detach from the primary tumor, invade surrounding tissue, enter the circulation or lymphatic system, survive the punishing shear stresses of blood flow, arrest in a small vessel of a distant organ, exit into the new tissue, and finally adapt to an unfamiliar microenvironment well enough to proliferate. Each of these steps imposes distinct physical demands on the cell, from squeezing through narrow gaps to withstanding fluid forces to remodeling the stiffness of the tissue around it. Understanding which of these physical hurdles determine success or failure is essential for predicting and ultimately preventing deadly spread.

Organ-specific metastasis adds another layer of complexity. Clinicians have observed for more than a century that different cancers display characteristic patterns of spread: some tumors preferentially colonize the liver, others the lung, bone, or brain. Stephen Paget’s celebrated seed and soil hypothesis, proposed in 1889, framed the problem in agricultural terms, suggesting that tumor cells, like seeds, can only grow in congenial soil. Modern research has enriched that metaphor with molecular detail, identifying chemokine signaling, extracellular matrix composition, and organ-specific stromal cells as contributors to the soil’s fertility. What has been harder to capture is the physical dimension of the soil: how the stiffness, topology, fluid dynamics, and mechanical stresses of a given organ filter and shape arriving tumor cells. Studying these factors requires tools that can probe living tissue at multiple scales simultaneously, precisely the kind of methodological territory in which biophysics excels.

Tanner’s recognition by the Biophysical Society reflects the value of approaching these questions with the quantitative rigor of a physicist. Investigating biophysical determinants in a living animal, rather than in simplified cell culture dishes, is a demanding methodological choice. Cell culture allows exquisite control and measurement, but it strips away the fluid shear of the bloodstream, the three-dimensional architecture of organs, the immune system, and the mechanical heterogeneity of real tissue. Animal models preserve that complexity but make precise physical measurement far more difficult. Bridging the two requires innovative imaging strategies, engineered model systems that recapitulate key features of organs, and analytical frameworks capable of linking single-cell behavior to tissue-level outcomes. Researchers who accomplish this bridging are rare, and the award’s emphasis on work performed in a living animal signals how highly the community values that integration.

The significance of this line of research extends well beyond fundamental understanding. If the physical properties of an organ microenvironment help determine whether disseminated tumor cells take hold, then those properties become potential therapeutic targets. Approaches that modify tissue stiffness, interfere with mechanotransduction signaling pathways by which cells sense and respond to mechanical cues, or alter the physical interactions between tumor cells and their surroundings could complement existing treatments aimed at genetic and biochemical vulnerabilities. Moreover, physical measurements of the microenvironment might one day serve as predictive biomarkers, helping clinicians assess a patient’s risk of metastasis to particular organs and tailor surveillance and intervention accordingly. Work of the kind Tanner has pursued lays the groundwork for such translational possibilities by identifying which physical variables matter most.

Bárány Award recipients are chosen for outstanding contributions to biophysics at a career stage before senior rank, making the prize a marker of exceptional early trajectory. The award honors the legacies of Michael and Kate Bárány, whose own contributions to muscle biophysics exemplified the discipline’s tradition of explaining biological function through physical principles. In recognizing Tanner, the Society continues that tradition while also highlighting the expanding scope of biophysics itself. Once concentrated on problems such as protein structure, membrane dynamics, and muscle contraction, the field now encompasses the mechanics of cancer, the physics of morphogenesis, and the quantitative analysis of intact organisms. The Society, founded in 1958, describes its mission as leading a global community working at the interface of the physical and life sciences across all levels of complexity, and its roughly 6,000 members teach and conduct research in universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry around the world.

The announcement also offered a vivid portrait of Tanner as a scientist. BPS President Karen Fleming of Johns Hopkins University described her as an innovative thinker and a fearless experimentalist, adding that Tanner has established herself as a world leader in the research community that investigates the impact of physical properties on complex biological processes within tissue and within intact organisms. The characterization is notable for its emphasis on fearlessness. Experiments that probe physical forces inside living animals demand technical ingenuity and a tolerance for systems that resist the tidy controls of the physics laboratory. The praise from the Society’s president suggests that Tanner’s willingness to tackle biology at its most complicated and least controllable has been central to her standing in the field.

The February 2027 meeting in Philadelphia will bring together thousands of biophysicists for a program spanning molecular, cellular, and organismal scales, and the award lecture that accompanies the Bárány honor will give Tanner a prominent platform to describe her findings to that audience. For the broader cancer research community, the recognition serves as a reminder that the physical sciences are no longer peripheral to oncology. The spread of cancer through the body is, at its core, a problem of cells navigating a physical world: deforming through confined spaces, sensing the rigidity of the ground beneath them, enduring the rush of blood, and remodeling the architecture of the tissues they invade. By illuminating the biophysical determinants of organ-specific metastasis in living animals, Tanner’s work addresses one of the most consequential questions in medicine with the tools of physics, and the 2027 Michael and Kate Bárány Award marks both her achievements and the growing conviction that understanding cancer requires understanding its physics.

Subject of Research: Biophysical mechanisms of organ-specific cancer metastasis recognized by the 2027 Michael and Kate Bárány Award

Article Title: Kandice Tanner to receive 2027 Michael and Kate Bárány Award

Article References: Kandice Tanner to receive 2027 Michael and Kate Bárány Award. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Kandice Tanner, Biophysical Society, Bárány Award, metastasis, biophysics, National Cancer Institute, organ-specific metastasis, tumor microenvironment, mechanobiology, cancer research, living animal models, scientific award

The Society cited two pillars of Puglisi’s scientific career as the basis for the honor. The first is a body of sophisticated nuclear magnetic resonance, or NMR, studies that have advanced fundamental concepts of how RNA is recognized by other molecules. The second is a series of groundbreaking single-molecule experiments using fluorescence resonance energy transfer, commonly known as FRET, that have illuminated the inner workings of the ribosome, the molecular machine that translates genetic information into proteins. Together, these contributions have shaped how an entire generation of researchers thinks about RNA structure, dynamics, and function.

The award’s namesake carries deep personal significance in this case. Ignacio “Nacho” Tinoco, after whom the prize is named, was Puglisi’s mentor, and his contributions to the spectroscopic, thermodynamic, structural, and single-molecule study of RNA are considered foundational to the modern understanding of the physical principles governing macromolecules. Tinoco challenged the biophysics community to continually push the boundaries of fundamental understanding, and the award created in his memory recognizes scientists who carry that spirit forward. That Puglisi, a direct scientific descendant of Tinoco, should now receive the honor bearing his mentor’s name gives the 2027 announcement a rare narrative symmetry.

Biophysical Society President Karen Fleming of Johns Hopkins University praised Puglisi’s originality and the depth of his influence. “Jody is one of the most creative and innovative scientists in the field of translation,” Fleming said. “His recognition aptly honors the legacy of Ignacio “Nacho” Tinoco, Jody’s mentor, who challenged our community to continually push our fundamental understanding of biophysics.” Fleming added that Puglisi’s contributions are unique, noting that his research over the past decades has provided physical and structural foundations for RNA’s dynamic role in biology and has revealed many of the most complex yet fundamental properties of RNA-mediated biology.

To appreciate why Puglisi’s NMR work earned such recognition, it helps to understand what the technique makes possible. NMR spectroscopy allows researchers to probe the structure and motion of molecules at atomic resolution in solution, closer to the conditions of a living cell than many other structural methods. RNA, however, is notoriously difficult to study this way. Unlike proteins, many RNA molecules are flexible, dynamic, and conformationally heterogeneous, adopting ensembles of shapes rather than a single rigid structure. Extracting meaningful structural and dynamic information from such systems demands both methodological ingenuity and deep physical insight, qualities that have characterized Puglisi’s approach throughout his career.

Through decades of NMR studies, Puglisi and his collaborators helped establish how RNA molecules are recognized by binding partners, including proteins and small molecules. RNA recognition underlies a vast range of biological processes, from the regulation of gene expression to the action of antibiotics that target bacterial ribosomes. By defining the structural principles that govern these interactions, his work provided a conceptual framework that other laboratories have built upon, connecting atomic-level detail to the broader mechanics of molecular biology. This kind of fundamental knowledge is also a starting point for practical applications, since many drugs work by binding to RNA or to the molecular machines that interact with it.

The second strand of Puglisi’s recognized work, single-molecule FRET, represents a different but complementary way of seeing biology. In a FRET experiment, two fluorescent tags are placed on a molecule or molecular complex at carefully chosen positions. When the tags come close together, energy transfers between them, producing a signal that reports on the distance between the labeled sites. By monitoring individual molecules one at a time, researchers can watch molecular machines move in real time, capturing transient states and rare events that are invisible to methods that average signals over enormous populations of molecules. For something as dynamic as the ribosome, this capability is transformative.

Using these single-molecule approaches, Puglisi’s laboratory has dissected some of the most intricate behaviors of the ribosome during translation, the process by which messenger RNA is decoded into amino acid chains. The Society’s announcement specifically highlighted his studies of translational frameshifting, bypassing, stalling, and pausing during elongation. Frameshifting occurs when the ribosome slips by one or more nucleotides, reading the genetic message in a different frame and producing a different protein, a mechanism that certain viruses exploit and that cells use for regulation. Bypassing, meanwhile, allows a ribosome to skip over stretches of mRNA, while stalling and pausing during elongation influence how quickly and accurately proteins are made. Observing these events directly, one ribosome at a time, revealed kinetic details and intermediate states that population-level experiments simply could not resolve.

What makes this body of work especially significant is how it reframed the ribosome from a static structure into a dynamic machine. High-resolution structures had provided stunning snapshots of the ribosome at work, but the transitions between those states, their timing, and their probabilities remained largely hidden. Single-molecule FRET brought those dynamics into view, showing how the ribosome samples different conformations, how transfer RNAs move through the machine, and how the messenger RNA itself can be handled in unexpected ways. In doing so, Puglisi’s research connected the physical chemistry of molecular motion to one of biology’s most essential processes, the synthesis of every protein in every living cell.

The Biophysical Society, founded in 1958, is a professional scientific society established to lead a global community working at the interface of the physical and life sciences, across all levels of complexity, and to foster the dissemination of that knowledge. With roughly 6,000 members located around the world, the Society promotes growth in the field through its Annual Meeting, its publications, and its outreach activities, and its members teach and conduct research in colleges, universities, laboratories, government agencies, and industry. The Tinoco Award, presented within that community, honors a legacy of rigorous, quantitative inquiry into the molecules of life. When Puglisi accepts the 2027 prize in Philadelphia, the moment will recognize not only an individual career of technical brilliance and conceptual clarity, but also a scientific lineage running from Tinoco’s pioneering studies of RNA physical chemistry to the single-molecule era in which the movements of individual ribosomes can be watched as they read the genetic code.

Subject of Research: Physical chemistry of RNA and ribosome function recognized by the Biophysical Society's 2027 Ignacio Tinoco Award

Article Title: Joseph D. (Jody) Puglisi to receive the 2027 Ignacio Tinoco Award in Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules

Article References: Joseph D. (Jody) Puglisi to receive the 2027 Ignacio Tinoco Award in Physical Chemistry of Macromolecules. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: Not provided

Keywords: Joseph Puglisi, Biophysical Society, Ignacio Tinoco Award, NMR spectroscopy, single-molecule FRET, RNA recognition, ribosome, translation, translational frameshifting, physical chemistry, macromolecules, Stanford University