For his novel research using viral infections in bats to help answer questions about how infectious diseases jump between species, Daniel G. Streicker has been named the 2013 Grand Prize winner of the Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists. The new prize awards early-career scientists and includes a grand-prize award of US$25,000, supported by Science for Life Laboratory, a coordinated effort among four universities in Sweden, and the journal Science, which is published by AAAS, the nonprofit science society.

“Science has never been more exciting and we need to support and encourage young researchers today and in the future,” said Mathias Uhlén, the director for SciLifeLab and a key founder of the prize. “We are therefore excited for the truly tremendous response for the announcement of this new award for outstanding achievements by young scientists.”

The Science & SciLifeLab Prize for Young Scientists is a new prize aimed at rewarding young scientists at an early stage of their careers. The categories for this annual award are genomics/proteomics/systems biology, developmental biology, molecular and cell biology as well as environmental life science.