When Clifford Brangwynne, a PhD, first identified that biomolecules like proteins could form condensates within cells—in the same way that oil forms droplets in water—it didn’t make a huge splash. The finding was met with healthy skepticism from many who questioned whether those droplets could actually play a role in cell function.

But in the decade since, contributions by researchers from a range of disciplines have turned the study of biomolecular condensates into a field unto itself. Scientists now hope this new way of thinking of cellular organization will allow them to develop therapeutics for protein aggregation diseases like Alzheimer’s and cancers that are driven by mutations. (Learn how Pitt researchers are advancing the field.)

Recognizing this shift, the School of Medicine this year awarded its highest honor, the Dickson Prize in Medicine, to Brangwynne, the June K. Wu ’92 Professor of Engineering at Princeton University. He gave his Dickson Prize in Medicine Lecture in May 2023.

What advantage did your background in materials science give you in studying cell biology?

If we’re all doing the same exact thing, we all have the same exact training, we have the same backgrounds, then we’re going to essentially come to the same conclusions. Often the most interesting advances in science and technology and entrepreneurship and all areas of impact are happening at interfaces between traditionally separate disciplines. In my case, it was between soft condensed matter physics and cell biology. The interface between them became a very interesting place, simply because some of the questions that one would ask very standardly within materials physics hadn’t been asked in biology.

How does this work challenge the understanding of what’s going on within cells?

The notion from the textbook pictures that we draw on, that are in all the students’ heads, is that [a cell] is like a timepiece or a clock or a car: It’s got these interlocking parts, and this one moves, and that one moves, and then the machine works. The problem is, those pictures start to inform, in a more fundamental way, how we view the cell. If the cell is a type of machine, it’s a much more wet, squishy, dynamic and complex machine than any of those pictures would suggest.

A typical protein in your cell is rotating around at about a million times a second and interacting with hundreds of thousands of binding partners. There’s no machine that we know of that operates quite like that. What’s exciting about the biomolecular condensate field and the idea of phase transitions as an organizational principle—it’s fundamentally a new way of thinking about how the cell can work and [organize] in coherent order.

What does it mean to you to have your work recognized with the Dickson Prize in Medicine?

We’re starting to see therapeutics move toward the clinic, and to see drugs that are going to have an impact on diseases that are really devastating. I’m really thrilled that we’re at a point where the medical field sees the value and potential of these fundamental advances.

I was an undergraduate at Carnegie Mellon University. And so to come back to Pittsburgh, to receive this recognition from the University of Pittsburgh medical school, was also really meaningful to me.

—Interview by Andrew Doerfler. Comments have been condensed and edited for clarity. Listen to the Pitt Medcast at pittmed.pitt.edu/podcasts.

Read more from the Fall 2023 issue.