Nominations open now for BIAL Award in Biomedicine

The third edition of the BIAL Foundation's international award, the BIAL Award in Biomedicine, is now underway, with nominations open until 30 June. With the amount of 300.000 Euros, this award aims to recognize a work of a broad biomedical nature with exceptional quality and scientific relevance results published within the last ten years.

The winner will be chosen by an independent and international Jury chaired by Ralph Adolphs, Professor of Psychology, Neuroscience and Biology at Caltech (California Institute of Technology). In addition to the president, the Panel includes 12 members appointed by the European Research Council, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities, the European Medical Association, the Scientific Board of the BIAL Foundation, previous winners of the BIAL Award, and editors of the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine.

Candidates for this international award may be nominated by members of the Jury, members of the Scientific Board of the BIAL Foundation, previous BIAL Award winners, Scientific Societies, Boards or Deans of Medical Faculties, Heads of leading research institutes, and Boards or Heads of prestigious Academies. Highly qualified researchers may also nominate works, though self-nominations will not be accepted.

Ralph Adolphs, president of the Jury, expressed his high expectations for this new edition: "Given the broad nature of this award, we expect to receive nominations from organized groups of scientists with a wide range of affiliations, including in academia, scientific societies, and research institutes. We hope to receive works of high quality and relevance from scientists from any country around the world and at any stage of their career".

For Luís Portela, chairman of the BIAL Foundation, "this award aims to mobilize the scientific community to share, through nominations, relevant work by researchers from all over the world, with a view to recognizing the most important scientific discoveries in the biomedical field".

In the last edition in 2021, this award distinguished an article published in Nature journal in 2017 focused on the mRNA technology used in Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna's Covid-19 vaccines. The winning team was led by the American scientist Drew Weissman and included, at the time of the article's publication, 36 co-authors from the Universities of Pennsylvania, Duke and Kansas State (USA), Harvard Medical School (USA), National Institutes of Health (USA), Bioqual Inc. (USA), Acuitas Therapeutics (Canada), and BioNTech RNA Pharmaceuticals (Germany).

The BIAL Award in Biomedicine takes place biannually, in odd-numbered years, alternating with the Prémio BIAL de Medicina Clínica. It has the patronage of the President of the Portuguese Republic, the Council of Rectors of Portuguese Universities and the European Medical Association.

The Regulation and Nomination Form for the BIAL Award in Biomedicine 2023 are available here.

Prof. Ralph Adolphs, president of the Jury, explains the BIAL Award in Biomedicine 2023 nomination process | Watch the video here.

Prof. Drew Weissman, winner of the 2021 edition, talks about the importance of the BIAL Award in Biomedicine 2023 | Watch the video here.