PNAS Announces Six 2025 Cozzarelli Prize Recipients

WASHINGTON, DC – The Editorial Board of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) has selected six papers published by PNAS in 2025 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 more than 3,600 research articles that appeared in the journal last year and represent the six broadly defined classes under which the NAS is organized. Additionally, the Editorial Board has recognized six papers—one in each class—as finalists for the 2025 Cozzarelli Prize.

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 2025 awardees will be recognized at an awards ceremony during the NAS Annual Meeting in April 2026.

2025 Cozzarelli Prize Recipients

Class I: Physical and Mathematical Sciences

Winner:

Physics-tailored machine learning reveals unexpected physics in dusty plasmas

Wentao Yu, Eslam Abdelaleem, Ilya Nemenman, and Justin C. Burton

Dusty plasmas are complex mixtures of ions, electrons, and charged dust that are commonly found in space. The various forces acting on dust particles render modeling the physics of dusty plasmas challenging. The authors of this study developed a machine-learning model trained on 3D particle trajectories of dusty plasmas generated in the lab. The model helped discern the forces between particles with high accuracy. The accuracy of the model enables measurements of particle charge in a dusty plasma that deviates from theoretical predictions of plasma behavior. Dusty plasmas are an example of many-body systems, and the laws of interactions between the entities in such systems are poorly defined. This study suggests that machine learning could help develop physical laws describing the behavior of many-body systems, from colloidal suspensions to exoplanet systems.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2505725122

Finalist:

A universal wind–wave–bubble formulation for air–sea gas exchange and its impact on oxygen fluxes

Luc Deike, Xiaohui Zhou, Paridhi Rustogi, Rachel H. R. Stanley, Brandon G. Reichl, Seth M. Bushinsky, and Laure Resplandy

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2419319122

Class II: Biological Sciences

Winner:

The emergence of eukaryotes as an evolutionary algorithmic phase transition

Enrique M. Muro, Fernando J. Ballesteros, Bartolo Luque, and Jordi Bascompte

The emergence of eukaryotic cells, which contain a membrane-bound nucleus and organelles, was a watershed moment that led to the evolution of multicellular organisms. To explore the origins of eukaryotes, the authors of this study analyzed the properties of genes and their corresponding proteins for 6,519 species across the tree of life. When life was limited to prokaryotic cells, the lengths of genes and proteins increased concurrently over time. With the onset of eukaryotic life, average protein length stabilized around 500 amino acids as gene length continued to increase, primarily through increases in noncoding sequences that regulate gene activity. Because producing increasingly large proteins is energy-intensive, the study suggests that eukaryotic cells represent a trade-off between protein size constraints and continued gene growth.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2422968122

Finalist:

Horizontal transfer of nuclear DNA in transmissible cancer

Kevin Gori, Adrian Baez-Ortega, Andrea Strakova, Maximilian R. Stammnitz, Jinhong Wang, Jonathan Chan, Katherine Hughes, Sophia Belkhir, Maurine Hammel, Daniella Moralli, James Bancroft, Edward Drydale, Karen M. Allum, María Verónica Brignone, Anne M. Corrigan, Karina F. de Castro, Edward M. Donelan, Ibikunle A. Faramade, Alison Hayes, Nataliia Ignatenko, Rockson Karmacharya, Debbie Koenig, Marta Lanza-Perea, Adriana M. Lopez Quintana, Michael Meyer, Winifred Neunzig, Francisco Pedraza-Ordoñez, Yoenten Phuentshok, Karma Phuntsho, Juan C. Ramirez-Ante, John F. Reece, Sheila K. Schmeling, Sanjay Singh, Lester J. Tapia Martinez, Marian Taulescu, Samir Thapa, Sunil Thapa, Mirjam G. van der Wel, Alvaro S. Wehrle-Martinez, Michael R. Stratton, and Elizabeth P. Murchison

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2424634122

Class III: Engineering and Applied Sciences

Winner:

Viscoelastic structural damping enables broadband low-frequency sound absorption

Yanlin Zhang, Junyin Li, Qiongying Wu, Marco Amabili, Diego Misseroni, and Hanqing Jiang

Conventional acoustic metamaterials designed to absorb low-frequency, airborne sounds typically rely on air resonance in structures with high stiffness and bulky designs. Additionally, the performance of air-resonant mechanisms is limited to narrow frequency bands. The authors of this study designed a composite acoustic metamaterial that uses structural damping via deformation of a soft, viscoelastic shell within a rigid outer structure, alongside air resonance. The resulting unit achieved more than 97% absorption across a broad low-frequency range: 227–329 hertz. The findings could guide the development of compact, tunable, and broadband low-frequency sound absorbers for improving acoustic environments and controlling noise pollution.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2520808122

Finalist:

Active matter as the underpinning agency for extraordinary sensitivity of biological membranes to electric fields

Anand Mathew and Yashashree Kulkarni

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2427255122

Class IV: Biomedical Sciences

Winner:

Inhibiting 15-PGDH blocks blood–brain barrier deterioration and protects mice from Alzheimer’s disease and traumatic brain injury

Yeojung Koh, Edwin Vázquez-Rosa, Farrah Gao, Hongyun Li, Suwarna Chakraborty, Sunil Jamuna Tripathi, Sarah Barker, Zea Bud, Anusha Bangalore, Uapingena P. Kandjoze, Rose A. León-Alvarado, Preethy S. Sridharan, Brittany A. Cordova, Youngmin Yu, Jiwon Hyung, Hua Fang, Salendra Singh, Ramachandra Katabathula, Thomas LaFramboise, Lakshmi Kasturi, James Lutterbaugh, Lydia Beard, Erika Cordova, Coral J. Cintrón-Pérez, Kathryn Franke, Mariana Franco Fragoso, Emiko Miller, Vidya Indrakumar, Kamryn L. Noel, Matasha Dhar, Kaouther Ajroud, Carlos Zamudio, Filipa Blasco Tavares Pereira Lopes, Evangeline Bambakidis, Xiongwei Zhu, Brigid Wilson, Margaret E. Flanagan, Tamar Gefen, Hisashi Fujioka, Stephen P. Fink, Amar B. Desai, Dawn Dawson, Noelle S. Williams, Young-Kwang Kim, Joseph M. Ready, Bindu D. Paul, Min-Kyoo Shin, Sanford D. Markowitz, and Andrew A. Pieper

Degradation of the blood–brain barrier (BBB) contributes to neurodegeneration and cognitive decline in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and traumatic brain injury (TBI). The authors of this study explored whether inhibiting an enzyme that breaks down prostaglandins and other anti-inflammatory mediators could protect the BBB. The authors found that the enzyme—15-hydroxyprostaglandin dehydrogenase (15-PGDH)—was pathologically elevated in mouse models of AD and TBI, as well as in brain tissues from humans with these conditions. Inhibiting 15-PGDH in mouse models of AD and TBI reduced oxidative injury and neuroinflammation, preserved BBB integrity, and preserved cognition. Protection in the AD mouse model was achieved without a reduction in amyloid pathology, indicating a noncanonical therapeutic mechanism. The findings establish 15-PGDH inhibition as a potential strategy to preserve cognitive health in AD and TBI.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2417224122

Finalist:

In the activation of HPV-specific human B cells HPV-VLP vaccines mimic membrane-associated antigens

Charles Torgbor, Haewon Sohn, Brian L. P. Dizon, Evan C. Mutic, Rachel George, Kihyuck Kwak, Munir Akkaya, Esin Bayrali Ulker, Maria Traver, Joseph Brzostowski, Denise A. Galloway, Cynthia D. Thompson, Nicolas Çuburu, John T. Schiller, and Susan K. Pierce

https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2414514122

Class V: Behavioral and Social Sciences

Winner:

The potential existential threat of large language models to online survey research

Sean J. Westwood

Surveys are used in several fields of scientific inquiry. This study reports that autonomous AI agents can complete online surveys with coherent responses that evade nearly all existing AI detection methods. The AI agents can reason through complex questions. They also maintain a demographic persona, mimicking the vocabulary and writing errors of the persona’s education level. Further, the AI agents remember prior responses and link sophisticated inferences together across items. Even without malicious intent, AI agents can infer a researcher’s hypothesis and produce data that confirms it. With a single instruction, AI agents can systematically bias polling results as part of coordinated information warfare. The study suggests that AI has the potential to manipulate the infrastructure on which public health tracking and public opinion polling are built.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2518075122

Finalist:

The entities enabling scientific fraud at scale are large, resilient, and growing rapidly

Reese A. K. Richardson, Spencer S. Hong, Jennifer A. Byrne, Thomas Stoeger, and Luís A. Nunes Amaral

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2420092122

Class VI: Applied Biological, Agricultural, and Environmental Sciences

Winner:

A quantitative risk assessment framework for mortality due to macroplastic ingestion in seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles

Erin L. Murphy, Britta R. Baechler, Lauren Roman, George H. Leonard, Nicholas J. Mallos, Robson G. Santos, and Chelsea M. Rochman

Plastic ingestion is widespread among marine animals. The authors of this study used data from more than 10,000 necropsies of marine animals to evaluate the mortality risk associated with macroplastic ingestion. The authors found that 35% of seabirds, 12% of marine mammals, and 47% of sea turtles had ingested plastic. The authors modeled mortality risk based on the number of plastic pieces ingested, the volume ingested, and the types of plastic ingested. The models suggested that a plastic load of 23 pieces in seabirds, 29 pieces in marine mammals, and 405 pieces in sea turtles poses a 90% mortality risk. The mortality risk differed depending on the type of plastic. The findings may help monitor and manage the effects of plastic pollution on marine animals.

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2415492122

Finalist:

Riverine heat waves on the rise, outpacing air heat waves

Kayalvizhi Sadayappan and Li Li

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2503160122

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