In this fiscal year 2019, "SPRUC 2019 Young Scientist Award" which was being invited had ten candidates by the closing date. SPRUC 2019 Young Scientist Award Review Committee had rigorous process for selecting two winners. The SPRUC 2019 Young Science Award (YSA) is given to a young scientist who is recognized as having established a notable achievement in the development of a new experimental technique or a new method for data analysis, or having achieved remarkable results in the studied field by making use of the characteristic features of SPring-8/SACLA.

Award winner : Dr. Wataru Shihoya
( Graduate School of Science, the University of Tokyo )
Research subject : Structural and functional analysis of human endothelin ETB receptor
Citation for the award : GPCR is a receptor that controls in vivo signal transduction that activates intracellular G proteins by receiving extracellular hormones and is very useful as a drug discovery target; targeted by about 30% of current therapeutic agents. Dr.Shihoya successfully crystallized a complex of endothelin receptor type B which is one of GPCRs, and its ligand Endothelin 1 using LCP-method. Dr. Shihoya succeeded to solve the world's first full-length ligand-GPCR complex structure at 2.8? resolution. Based on its structure, the interaction with the ligand was analyzed in detail, and succeeded in the structural determination of GPCR in the ligand-free state for the first time in the world. By comparing those two structures, Dr. Shihoya clarified the receptor activation mechanism by endogenous peptide agonists. Through GPCR structural determination, Dr.Shihoya also deeply cooperated with the development of the automatic data acquisition system ZOO at SPring-8 BL32XU throughout his project. The therapeutic agent bosentan binding complex is the first membrane protein analyzed by using ZOO. Dr. Shihoya addressed the difficult task of studying the functional expression mechanism of GPCR, and made a major contribution to the achievement of SPring-8 protein crystal structure analysis, such as elucidating the receptor activation mechanism together with a significant contribution to development of the automatic data acquisition system.

Award winner :Dr. Yuya Kubota
( Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute : JASRI )
Research subject : Magnetism of buried layers studied by soft X-ray resonant magneto-optical effect using polarization modulation
Citation for the award : Dr. Yuya Kubota has been developing a polarization modulation method of resonant magneto-optical effects as a new soft X-ray magneto-optical measurement. Furthermore, he constructed a theory for measurement principle, and succeeded in developing simultaneous measurement for ellipticity (magnetic circular dichroism) and rotation angle (magneto-optical Kerr rotation angle) and direct determination of complex dielectric constant tensor in the soft X-ray region for the first time. These outstanding achievements taking good advantage of SPring-8 are highly evaluated. This analytical method could widely open up a possibility to precisely measure magnetic properties of materials/substances, and is expected to play an important role in developing optical elements for XFEL and synchrotron radiation sciences. His contribution to these achievements and synchrotron radiation science which well deserves Young Scientist Award is clear.