Magdalena Żernicka-Goetz (born 1963) is a Polish-British

developmental biologist Developmental biology is the study of the process by which animals and plants grow and develop. Developmental biology also encompasses the biology of regeneration, asexual reproduction, metamorphosis, and the growth and differentiation of stem c ...

. She is Professor of Mammalian Development and Stem Cell Biology in the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience and Fellow of

Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Sidney Sussex College (referred to informally as "Sidney") is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge in England. The College was founded in 1596 under the terms of the will of Frances Sidney, Countess of Sussex (1531–1589), wife ...

. She also serves as Bren Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at

California Institute of Technology The California Institute of Technology (branded as Caltech or CIT)The university itself only spells its short form as "Caltech"; the institution considers other spellings such a"Cal Tech" and "CalTech" incorrect. The institute is also occasional ...

(Caltech). In 2020, she was listed by ''Prospect'' as the 10th-greatest thinker for the

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

era, with the magazine writing, “She’s been able to grow human embryos in vitro right up to the current 14-day legal limit.”

Education

Żernicka-Goetz was born in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, Poland in 1963. She received her Master of Science degree (summa cum laude) in developmental biology (1988) and her PhD degree in the developmental biology of mammals (1993) from the

University of Warsaw The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

, with one year (1990–91) spent at the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

. She carried out her Ph.D. studies with

Andrzej Tarkowski Andrzej Krzysztof Tarkowski (4 May 1933 – 23 September 2016) was a Polish embryologist and a professor at Warsaw University. He is best known for his pioneering researches on embryos and blastomeres, which have created theoretical and practica ...

(Warsaw) and Chris Graham (Oxford).

Career and research

After obtaining her Ph.D., Zernicka-Goetz spent two years as a

postdoctoral A postdoctoral fellow, postdoctoral researcher, or simply postdoc, is a person professionally conducting research after the completion of their doctoral studies (typically a PhD). The ultimate goal of a postdoctoral research position is to p ...

European Molecular Biology Organization The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

(EMBO) fellow with

Martin Evans Sir Martin John Evans (born 1 January 1941) is an English biologist who, with Matthew Kaufman, was the first to culture mice embryonic stem cells and cultivate them in a laboratory in 1981. He is also known, along with Mario Capecchi and Olive ...

in the Wellcome Trust / Cancer Research UK Institute (now the

Gurdon Institute The Gurdon Institute (officially the Wellcome/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute) is a research facility at the University of Cambridge, specialising in developmental biology and cancer biology. History The Institute was founded in 1989 to prov ...

) in Cambridge. In 1997, she started her independent group in the Gurdon Institute where she was a Lister Institute Senior Research Fellow (1997-2002) and subsequently a Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellow. In 2014, she moved her laboratory to the Department of Physiology, Development and Neuroscience of the University of Cambridge. In 2007, she was awarded a readership and in 2010 a professorship at the University of Cambridge. Upon setting up her independent group in 1997, she studied the mechanisms regulating early mammalian development. To do this, she was first to establish RNA interference in mammalian cells to determine cell fate in the mouse embryos. At that time, she also began to trace the origins and destinies of cells in the preimplantation mouse embryo that let her to discover that cell fate specification begins earlier than expected, an unexpected discovery but subsequently validated by her group and others. She found that this development of cell identity begins with heterogeneity in epigenetic regulation at the 4-cell stage that directs a molecular cascade establishing cell polarity, position and fate. Her recent development of systems permitting both mouse and human embryogenesis during implantation and early post-implantation stages ''in vitro'' allowed her to reveal that mouse and human embryo remodelling at implantation is done autonomously by the embryo. She uncovered the mechanism underlying embryo remodelling between the blastocyst and gastrula stages that has led to a change in the textbook model. Her demonstration of the self-organisation of human embryos developing ''in vitro'' until day 13/14, gastrulation, has provided an unprecedented opportunity to study human development at previously inaccessible and critical stages. This discovery was hailed as the people's choice for the scientific breakthrough of 2016 by Science magazine. The knowledge she gained through her work on how the embryo develops during the blastocyst to gastrula transition, allowed her to mimic these developmental processes with different types of stem cells in vitro. This led her to the pioneering success of constructing embryo-like structures from pluripotent embryonic and multipotent extra-embryonic (trophoblast) stem cells in a 3D scaffold of extra-cellular matrix proteins in vitro. These "synthetic embryos" recapitulate the natural architecture of the embryo and their patterns of gene expression leading to the specification of the germ layers and germ cells. This system allowed her to identify signalling pathways responsible for morphogenesis of stem cells into embryos. Together these models bring outstanding potential for understanding development and for

regenerative medicine Regenerative medicine deals with the "process of replacing, engineering or regenerating human or animal cells, tissues or organs to restore or establish normal function". This field holds the promise of engineering damaged tissues and organs by st ...

. Żernicka-Goetz's group have shown that sperm entry induces actomyosin-driven cytoplasmic flows that are predictive of successful development to birth in the mouse. This provides an opportunity to identify quantitatively and non-invasively the healthiest embryos to transfer to would-be-mothers in IVF. Stimulated by the finding of placental cells with abnormal chromosome complements (aneuploid cells) in her own pregnancy, she began to study the consequence of aneuploidy upon development in a mouse model. Her lab generated an experimental model to find that aneuploid cells arising during embryogenesis in the mouse embryo become eliminated by apoptosis in embryonic but not extra-embryonic tissues. This gives insight into why mosaic aneuploidy identified by chorionic-villus-sampling can be tolerated in human pregnancies. The potential impact of Żernicka-Goetz's work is now becoming widely recognised through her public engagement. Her book “The Dance of Life” co-authored with

Roger Highfield Roger Ronald Highfield (born 1958 in Griffithstown, Wales) is an author, science journalist, broadcaster and Science Director at the Science Museum Group. Education Highfield was educated at Chase Side Primary School in Enfield and Christ's Ho ...

, describes her scientific and personal journey devoted to understanding the earliest stages of our own life and the critical issue of women in science. "A touching, detailed portrait of a life in science. Beautifully written, it's a reminder that scientists are human and their humanity affects every part of their work.” -

Angela Saini Angela Saini (born in London, 1980) is a British science journalist, broadcaster and the author of books, of which the fourth, ''The Patriarchs: The Origins of Inequality'', was published in 2023. Saini has worked as a reporter and presenter fo ...

. "Few books succeed as well as this in taking a complex area of rapidly advancing science, and turning it into a compelling human story. Rarely will you read such an intimate and personal account of scientific discovery.” -

Evan Davis Evan Harold Davis (born 8 April 1962) is an English economist, journalist, and presenter for the BBC. He has presented ''Dragons' Den'' since 2005. In October 2001, Davis took over from Peter Jay as the BBC's economics editor. He left this p ...

Awards and honors

Żernicka-Goetz was elected a member of the

(EMBO) in 2007, a

Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences Fellowship of the Academy of Medical Sciences (FMedSci) is an award for medical scientists who are judged by the UK Academy of Medical Sciences for the "excellence of their science, their contribution to medicine and society and the range of th ...

(FMedSci), 2013, and a foreign member of

Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences The Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences or Polish Academy of Learning ( pl, Polska Akademia Umiejętności), headquartered in Kraków and founded in 1872, is one of two institutions in contemporary Poland having the nature of an academy of scien ...

in 2016. Other awards and honours include: * 2022 ''NOMIS Foundation'' 'Distinguished Scientist and Scholar' Awardee * Top ten in ''Prospect Magazine's'' 'World's Top 50 Thinkers for the COVID-19 Age' *''The Times'' 'Science Power List', May 2020 *International Foundation IVI Award for the Best Basic Research in Reproductive Medicine, 2017 * Foreign Member of Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences, elected 2016 * Winner of the People's Vote for Scientific Breakthrough of the year 2016 by Science magazine *

2013 * Anne McLaren Memorial Lecture Award, International Society of Differentiation, 2008 * Member of

European Molecular Biology Organisation The European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO) is a professional, non-profit organization of more than 1,800 life scientists. Its goal is to promote research in life science and enable international exchange between scientists. It co-funds cour ...

, elected 2007 * Young Investigator Award, EMBO (2001-2004) * Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship (2002-2008, 2008–2013, 2013–2018) * Lister Institute of Preventative Medicine Senior Research Fellowship (1997-2002) * EMBO Long-term Fellowship for post-doctoral studies at the University of Cambridge (1995-1997) * Best Ph.D. thesis Award, Polish Ministry of Education, 1994 * Promising Young Scientist Prize, Foundation for Polish Science, 1993

Personal life

Żernicka-Goetz married

David Glover David Moore Glover (born 28 March 1948) is a British geneticist and Research Professor of Biology and Biological Engineering at the California Institute of Technology. He served as Balfour Professor of Genetics at the University of Cambridge, ...

in 2000 and has two children.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zernicka-Goetz, Magdalena 21st-century British biologists 21st-century British women scientists British women biologists Fellows of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge Living people Polish biologists 1963 births