Philipp Kukura among Royal Society award winners

Congratulations to Professor Philipp Kukura FRS, who has been awarded the Clifford Paterson Medal and Lecture in this year's Royal Society awards.

Prof Kukura receives the award for pioneering and democratising mass photometry, a novel means of mass measurement for single biomolecules. He works to develop new optical methods that allow us to understand the basis of biomolecular function and regulation. Currently, his focus is mass photometry, light-scattering-based detection, imaging, and mass measurement of single biomolecules in solution. These approaches are used to "weigh" biomolecules, by assessing them one at a time, with this information then applied to find out what they are made of and how they interact. This can help us to understand how processes in a healthy body work, and what changes in the context of disease. Ultimately, this could help design new routes to intervention.

Prof Kukura said:

I am delighted to receive this honour, a recognition of the advances in life science research that are being enabled by breakthroughs in fundamental physical sciences.

Based in the Kavli Institute for Nanoscience Discovery at Oxford, a highly interdisciplinary environment across departments, disciplines and divisions, Professor Kukura fosters a strongly collaborative approach to research. His current work falls into two major categories: 1. Evolving mass photometry from a technological perspective to enable access to the full breath of biomolecular interactions. 2. Development of new assays to provide unique insight into biomolecular mechanisms. Earlier this year Prof Kukura was also made a Fellow of the Royal Society.

You can read more about the four Oxford winners of this year's awards here.