WASHINGTON — The Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has selected six papers published by PNAS in 2017 to receive the Cozzarelli Prize, an award that recognizes outstanding contributions to the scientific disciplines represented by the National Academy of Sciences (NAS). Papers were chosen from the more than 3,200 research articles that appeared in the journal last year and represent the six broadly defined classes under which the NAS is organized.

The annual Cozzarelli Prize acknowledges papers that reflect scientific excellence and originality. The award was established in 2005 as the Paper of the Year Prize and was renamed in 2007 to honor late PNAS Editor-in-Chief Nicholas R. Cozzarelli. The 2017 awards will be presented at the PNAS Editorial Board meeting, and awardees will be recognized at an awards ceremony, during the NAS Annual Meeting on April 29, 2018, in Washington, DC.

2017 Cozzarelli Prize Recipients

Class I (Physical and Mathematical Sciences):

“Origin of the RNA world: The fate of nucleobases in warm little ponds,” by Ben K. D. Pearce, Ralph E. Pudritz, Dmitry A. Semenov, and Thomas K. Henning
Link to article: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/43/11327
Accompanying commentary: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/43/11264

Class II (Biological Sciences):

“Single master regulatory gene coordinates the evolution and development of butterfly color and iridescence,” by Linlin Zhang, Anyi Mazo-Vargas, and Robert D. Reed
Link to article: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/40/10707

Class III (Engineering and Applied Sciences):

“Nondestructive nanostraw intracellular sampling for longitudinal cell monitoring,” by Yuhong Cao, Martin Hjort, Haodong Chen, Fikri Birey, Sergio A. Leal-Ortiz, Crystal M. Han, Juan G. Santiago, Sergiu P. Paşca, Joseph C. Wu, and Nicholas A. Melosh
Link to article: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/10/E1866

Class IV (Biomedical Sciences):

“Three-dimensional visualization and a deep-learning model reveal complex fungal parasite networks in behaviorally manipulated ants,” by Maridel A. Fredericksen, Yizhe Zhang, Missy L. Hazen, Raquel G. Loreto, Colleen A. Mangold, Danny Z. Chen, and David P. Hughes
Link to article: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/47/12590

Class V (Behavioral and Social Sciences):

“Language from police body camera footage shows racial disparities in officer respect,” by Rob Voigt, Nicholas P. Camp, Vinodkumar Prabhakaran, William L. Hamilton, Rebecca C. Hetey, Camilla M. Griffiths, David Jurgens, Dan Jurafsky, and Jennifer L. Eberhardt
Link to article: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/25/6521


Class VI (Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences):

“Methyl-compound use and slow growth characterize microbial life in 2-km-deep subseafloor coal and shale beds,” by Elizabeth Trembath-Reichert, Yuki Morono, Akira Ijiri, Tatsuhiko Hoshino, Katherine S. Dawson, Fumio Inagaki, and Victoria J. Orphan
Link to article: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/44/E9206
Accompanying commentary: http://www.pnas.org/content/114/44/11568

PNAS is one of the world's most-cited multidisciplinary scientific journals. It covers the biological, physical, and social sciences and mathematics and publishes cutting-edge research reports, commentaries, reviews, perspectives, colloquium papers, and actions of the Academy. PNAS is published daily online in PNAS Latest Articles and in weekly issues. Newly published papers are listed at www.pnas.org/content/early/recent.

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