Clifford Brangwynne

Clifford Brangwynne is the June K. Wu '92 Professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering in the Engineering faculty at Princeton University. He serves as Founding Director of the Omenn-Darling Bioengineering Institute and as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Investigator. Brangwynne earned a B.S. in Materials Science and Engineering from Carnegie Mellon University in 2001 and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard University in 2007. From 2007 to 2010, he was a Helen Hay Whitney Postdoctoral Fellow at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics and the Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems in Dresden. He joined the Princeton faculty in the Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering in 2011.

Brangwynne leads the Soft Living Matter Group, applying tools from soft matter physics and engineering to elucidate principles of biological organization, with emphasis on intracellular liquid-liquid phase separation and biomolecular condensates. His research explores RNA and protein organization in living cells, gene expression, aggregation diseases, and engineered cells and organelles. Key publications include the seminal paper "Germline P granules are liquid droplets that localize by controlled dissolution/condensation" (Science, 2009); "Liquid phase condensation in cell physiology and disease" (Science, 2017); "Coexisting liquid phases underlie nucleolar sub-compartments" (Cell, 2016); "Liquid nuclear condensates mechanically sense and restructure the genome" (Cell, 2018); and "The disordered P granule protein LAF-1 drives phase separation into droplets with tunable viscosity and dynamics" (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 2015). His discoveries have transformed understanding of membrane-less cellular compartmentalization, impacting developmental biology and disease research. Brangwynne has received the 2025 Keio Medical Science Prize, 2023 Breakthrough Prize in Life Sciences (shared with Anthony Hyman), 2018 MacArthur Fellowship, 2020 Blavatnik National Award in Life Sciences, Wiley Prize in Biomedical Sciences, HFSP Nakasone Award (2021, shared), Searle Scholar Award (2012), NSF CAREER Award, NIH New Innovator Award, Sloan Research Fellowship, and ASCB Emerging Leader Award.

Professional Email: cbrangwy@princeton.edu