To encourage diligent young scientists, the SGP has created an awards program which recognizes excellence in physiology. In addition to our Symposium Awards, the SGP supports both aspiring and independent young investigators through its Paul F. Cranefield Award and Cranefield Postdoctoral Fellow and Student Awards.

The Paul F. Cranefield Award

(click here for past Cranefield Award Winners)

The Paul F. Cranefield Award was created by the Council of the Society of General Physiologists to honor Paul F. Cranefield, M.D., Ph.D., who for 30 years served as Editor of Journal of General Physiology. The Award is meant to recognize an independent young investigator who in the preceding calendar year has published an outstanding article in the Journal. It further was stipulated that the Award need not be given every year, that it should be reserved for a truly noteworthy paper. To qualify for this Award, the work being recognized must have been completed within 10 years of the candidate’s first independent position, but the committee will continue to prioritize awards to more junior candidates when available.

Click here for the
Cranefield Postdoc and Student Awards 

2022 Cranefield Awardees

Paul F. Cranefield Award

Ivy E. Dick for “CaV1.2 channelopathic mutations evoke diverse pathophysiological mechanisms”
https://doi.org/10.1085/jgp.202213209

Dick and colleagues show that mutations in the Cav1.2 channel in patients affected by Timothy syndrome 2 with cardiac only phenotypes affect calcium- and voltage-dependent inactivation but mutations in patients with cardiac and neurological phenotypes also affect channel activation. This is an important step to understand the pathology of Timothy syndrome and paves the way for therapeutic intervention.

Cranefield Postdoctoral Fellow Award

Krishna Reddy for “The archaeal glutamate transporter homologue GltPh shows heterogeneous substrate binding"
https://doi.org/10.1085/jgp.202213131

Reddy and colleagues show that the lyotropic properties of anions binding to GltPh, an archaeal homologue of glutamate transporters, regulate the transporter’s conformational flexibility possibly explaining why GltPh displays long-lived ‘kinetic heterogeneity’ in its transport behavior, thus providing a blueprint to understand how anions might contribute to regulating the overall transporter rate.

Cranefield Student Award

Nicole Godellas for “Probing function in ligand-gated ion channels without measuring ion transport"
https://doi.org/10.1085/jgp.202213082

In this manuscript Godellas and Grossman revisit the classical equilibrium competitive radioligand binding method to show that, once true binding equilibrium is achieved, the ligand binding sites in the α7 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor channels are identical and independent and that distal mutations have little to no effect on binding affinity and affect only the gating equilibrium constant. This approach paves the way to study ion-channel function when electrophysiological studies are not possible.