Nereid Therapeutics Scientific Co-Founder Clifford Brangwynne Named a 2025 Keio Medical Science Prize Laureate
September 22, 2025/ − Clifford Brangwynne, Ph.D., co-founder of Nereid Therapeutics and professor of chemical and biological engineering at Princeton University, has been selected as a 2025 recipient of the Keio Medical Science Prize in recognition of his discovery and study of liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) within living cells—a “groundbreaking finding” that is “rewriting the very textbooks of biology,” according to Keio University, the sponsors of the annual award.
First introduced in 1996, the Keio Prize was created to honor outstanding achievements of medical and life science researchers, particularly those contributing to scientific advances in medicine.
Brangwynne’s revolutionary work in LLPS, which underpins Nereid’s scientific platform, has launched a new field of cell biology and biophysics with significant implications for understanding, and exciting potential applications for modifying, disease processes. Work in Brangwynne’s Princeton lab and Nereid’s labs has confirmed important roles played by cellular phase separation in cancer, neurological disorders, and other disease areas.
“I’m honored to receive the Keio Medical Science Prize in recognition for my contributions to elucidating phase separation as a fundamental mechanism underlying intracellular organization,” Brangwynne said in news coverage published by Princeton University. “Many dozens of different biological processes are now understood to be influenced by such phase transitions, and we’re excited that efforts to modulate intracellular phase behavior are central to emerging therapeutics for treatment of devastating diseases.”
Typically, two Keio Prize winners are selected each year, and to date 12 Keio Laureates have subsequently been chosen as Nobel Laureates. A 2025 Keio Prize was also awarded to Akiko Iwasaki, Ph.D., of Yale School of Medicine, for her research into human immune responses to COVID-19.