News: Chakraborty, Collins receive prestigious international prize

The two IMES faculty members have been honored for their long, distinguished careers in physical science.

Two core faculty members of IMES have been named 2026 Laureates of the Tel Aviv University International Prize in Biophysics.

Arup K. Chakraborty, John M. Deutch Institute Professor, and James J. Collins, Termeer Professor, Medical Engineering and IMES, have been recognized as “outstanding scientists whose work has significantly advanced the understanding of biological systems through physical principles.”

Chakraborty—who is also a professor of chemical engineering, physics, and chemistry, founding director of IMES, founding steering committee member of Ragon Institute of MIT, MGH and Harvard University—is recognized for his seminal contributions to applying statistical physics to immunology, developing predictive theoretical frameworks that elucidate the physical principles governing adaptive immune responses across scales and informing rational vaccine design.

Collins—who is also a professor of biological engineering, institute member of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, and core founding faculty of the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, Harvard University—is honored for pioneering contributions to quantitative and synthetic biophysics, establishing the design and construction of synthetic gene networks that reveal the dynamical and stochastic principles governing living systems and enabling innovative therapeutics, diagnostics, and programmable molecular tools.

Ned Wingreen, Princeton University, is recognized for seminal contributions to theoretical biophysics, developing rigorous physical frameworks that elucidate bacterial sensing, emergent microbial community behavior, intracellular phase separation, biomolecular condensates, and the dynamics of adaptive immunity.