This year, EMBO has awarded two Gold Medals: to Gautam Dey from EMBL Heidelberg, Germany, and Omaya Dudin from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. The EMBO Gold Medal is awarded annually to scientists early in their independent careers who are based within EMBC Member States. The award recognizes exceptional contributions to the life sciences in Europe. Awardees receive a medal and a bursary of 10,000 euros.
“The EMBO Gold Medal celebrates the creativity and quality of independent research in Europe,” said EMBO Director Fiona Watt.
Gautam Dey is awarded the EMBO Gold Medal in recognition of his outstanding work on the evolutionary origins of nuclear organization and cell division. Omaya Dudin is recognized for his remarkable work shedding light on the evolutionary origins of multicellularity.
EMBO Members and EMBO Young Investigators nominate candidates for the gold medal, and the EMBO Council selects the awardee at its annual meeting.
“The EMBO Council decided to award two candidates this year to recognize the scientific excellence as well as the open and fertile scientific collaboration between them,” said Marta Miączyńska, the EMBO Council Chair. “Their work is a successful example of the collaborative spirit that EMBO strives to foster through its programs and activities,” continued Miączyńska.
Gautam Dey is an evolutionary cell biologist interested in the origins of cell division and, since 2021, group leader at EMBL in Heidelberg, Germany. He studied biochemistry at the University of Delhi, India, followed by a research Masters at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore. Dey moved to Stanford University, US, for a PhD and then to UCL, London, UK, to work on eukaryogenesis. Dey, who is an EMBO Young Investigator and recipient of a FEBS Excellence Award, believes science done with friends is the best science of all, and is thrilled to share this award with his friend and collaborator Omaya Dudin.
Omaya Dudin is an assistant professor at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, and his lab is interested in understanding how multicellular developmental programmes emerge. Following studies in Grenoble, France, he completed a PhD in Lausanne, Switzerland, and was a postdoctoral researcher at the Multicellgenome Lab in Barcelona, Spain. He then started his group at EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland. Recognized as an EMBO Young Investigator, recipient of the FEBS Excellence Award and the Friedrich Miescher Award 2026, he believes science should be open, collaborative and unapologetically human. The EMBO Gold Medal, shared with his friend and colleague Gautam Dey, feels like a recognition of all three to him.
For more information about the EMBO Gold Medal, recipients and nomination process, please visit: EMBO Gold Medal
