Philip Bevilacqua honored with 2025 Edward W. Morley Medal
Philip Bevilacqua, distinguished professor of chemistry and of biochemistry and molecular biology, has been selected to receive the 2025 Edward W. Morley Medal by the Cleveland Section of the American Chemical Society. The Morley Medal is given annually to a chemist or chemical engineer for outstanding contributions to chemistry while working within a 250-mile radius of Cleveland. The purpose of the award is to recognize outstanding contributions to chemistry through achievements primarily in research, but also for important contributions in teaching, engineering, administration, public service, and service to humanity or to industrial progress.
“Bevilacqua's sustained strength in teaching and service, and, most importantly, his high-impact contributions in the field of RNA biochemistry over three decades make him eminently worthy of the Morley Medal,” said J. Martin Bollinger, Jr., Russell and Mildred Marker Professor of Natural Products Chemistry at Penn State in a nomination letter. “Bevilacqua's research program in the biochemistry and biology of RNA is world renowned and his teaching has been recognized with several awards. His empathy, sensitivity, and creativity have allowed him to understand the learning styles of those he instructs and to work synergistically with them to overcome barriers.”
The award is named for Edward W. Morley, whose research on the atomic weight of oxygen has been recognized as a National Historic Chemical Monument by the American Chemical Society. Bevilacqua will be presented with the medal at a banquet during the May meeting of the Cleveland Section, where he will also deliver the Edward W. Morley Lecture.
Bevilacqua focuses his research on attaining a molecular-level understanding of RNA, a macromolecule essential for all known forms of life that, among other functions, carries the genetic code for synthesizing proteins. Using techniques from molecular biology, chemistry, and physics, his lab studies how RNA folds into diverse structures and the functions that result from this diversity. Specifically, they investigate how RNA can act as an enzyme, how RNA folds in vivo, and how RNA may have played a role in the emergence of life on Earth. Bevilacqua’s research was also cited as one of three key publications that were foundational for the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, which was presented to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for their discoveries concerning nucleoside base modifications that enabled the development of effective mRNA vaccines against COVID-19.
“I have known Philip since we collaborated in 2010 on seminal work showing that incorporation of the modified nucleoside, pseudouridine into mRNA suppresses an immune response by diminishing the activation of the RNA-regulated protein kinase, PKR,” said nominator Katalin Karikó, 2023 Nobel Prize Laureate in Physiology or Medicine. “He was kind enough to host my graduate student, Bart Anderson, and to teach him how to purify and test the activity of PKR. The collaborative study between my team and Philip's group was one of three papers cited by the Nobel committee. I have watched Philip’s career with admiration over the years. Not only did he make important contributions to PKR and its regulation by RNA modifications and structures, but he also made other landmark contributions to the RNA field over his career.”
Bevilacqua's commitment to teaching and research have been honored with the C.I. Noll Award for Excellence in Teaching by the Penn State Eberly College of Science Alumni Society in 2012, the Faculty Scholar Medal in Physical Sciences by Penn State in 2010, and a CAREER Award by the National Science Foundation in 2000. He was named a Tombros Education Fellow by the Penn State Center for Excellence in Science Education in 2015 and was a Penn State Schreyer Honors College Distinguished Honors Faculty Fellow from 2010 to 2012, a Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar from 2001 to 2006, and an Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellow from 2001 to 2003. Bevilacqua is an elected Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science (AAAS) and has been a member of the editorial board for the scientific journal RNA since 2004. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Molecular Biology since 2014 and has published scientific papers in journals such as Biochemistry, the Journal of the American Chemical Society, Nature, Nature Chemical Biology, and Science.
Prior to joining the Penn State faculty in 1997, Bevilacqua was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Colorado Boulder with Nobel Laureate Thomas Cech. He earned a doctoral degree at the University of Rochester in 1993 with Douglas Turner and a bachelor's degree at John Carroll University in 1987.