Biophysical Society honors Josh Wand with Ignacio Tinoco Award

The Biophysical Society has honored Josh Wand, Ph.D., Texas A&M University Distinguished Professor and department head in the Texas A&M Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics, with the 2026 Ignacio Tinoco Award.

The award, one of the society’s highest honors, recognizes Wand’s career-long contributions explaining physical and biological processes behind how biomolecules such as proteins move and work.

The Biophysical Society is a worldwide organization whose members develop and disseminate knowledge in the interdisciplinary field of biophysics. The society previously chose Wand as a Fellow in 2010.

 “Dr. Wand’s work elevates Texas A&M AgriLife, and this recognition reflects the kind of innovations that advance our mission,” said Jeffrey W. Savell, Ph.D., vice chancellor and dean, Agriculture and Life Sciences. “We’re fortunate to have him shaping biochemistry and biophysics research and education at Texas A&M.”

A personal connection

Wand said he feels truly at home with biophysics and proteins, but this award holds a special meaning. Ignacio Tinoco was a long-time professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and his path crossed with Wand’s on many occasions, starting while Wand was a graduate student.

“Ignacio is one of my heroes,” Wand said. “He did a lot of pioneering work. That generation of biophysicists was really special — very reserved, funny, brilliant and oozing mentorship.”

A means for understanding life in extreme environments

Wand, who is also a faculty member in the Texas A&M College of Arts and Sciences, is a preeminent expert on the study of proteins through a high-tech technique called nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, NMR. The method lets scientists determine how proteins move and change shape.

Over the decades, Wand’s lab has developed new strategies to expand the uses of NMR. One such advance enabled figuring out how proteins behave under high pressures, such as in life forms that thrive on the ocean floor.

“Much of life as we know it exists at pressures where a human would be crushed,” he said. “How do biomolecules adapt to extremes? We have developed tools that will help unravel those questions.”

A guide for protein engineering and medicine

Another aspect of Wand’s work is shedding new light on how proteins attach to other molecules or therapeutics, which could potentially lead to advances in medicine. Developing new methods in NMR enabled the lab to measure proteins’ disorder or flexibility, otherwise known as entropy. A series of experiments then showed that for some proteins, changes in entropy drive their intricate biological function.

“We looked at the simplest situation, and people are now expanding the applications,” Wand said. “We opened this can of worms that people had ignored, and now they can’t.”

Recently, Wand’s lab has used knowledge of entropy as a guide to engineer a stronger interaction between a protein and a target molecule.

“I think protein engineering based on entropy will have a big impact,” Wand said. “Biologics are the new drugs, and our new approach will complement existing methods of creating them.”

The mystery at the heart of fundamental research

Wand’s advances have many applications today, but that was not the case when he began his career.

The work he is being honored for began as “a crazy idea” 20 years ago, Wand said, adding that he is grateful for the continued funding support from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and The Mathers Foundation.

“Many of our crazier ideas were funded by the Mathers Foundation,” he said.

Engineering proteins based on entropy was one such idea.

“You cannot predict the impact of fundamental discoveries,” he said. “Often, the utility of something doesn’t manifest in the general world until decades later.”

Wand will be honored at the Biophysical Society’s 70th annual meeting in San Francisco, California, on Feb. 21-25.