Society of Developmental Biology Honors Caltech’s Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz

Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, the Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology, and affiliated faculty member with the institute’s Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute for Neuroscience, has been awarded its 2022 Edwin G. Conklin Medal from the Society of Developmental Biology. Established in 1995, the Edwin G. Conklin Medal recognizes “a developmental biologist who has made and is continuing to make extraordinary research contributions to the field, and is an excellent mentor who has helped train the next generation of outstanding scientists.”

Dr. Zernicka-Goetz’s research addresses fundamental questions about how life begins, such as: What drives a fertilized egg to divide and grow until it becomes 40 trillion cells, and how do these cells know how to make a person? To address these questions, she has developed methods for tracking living embryos to determine how stem cells are first created, establish their fates, and work together to shape the body.

Dr. Zernicka-Goetz joined the faculty at CalTech in 2019. Earlier, she was a professor of mammalian development and stem cell biology at the University of Cambridge in England. She is a fellow of the British Academy of Medical Science.

Dr. Zernicka-Goetz holds a master’s degree and a Ph.D. from the University of Warsaw in Poland.