Indian-origin scientist bags top Europe research award

Gautam Dey, an Indian-origin scientist working with the European Molecular Biology Laboratory at Heidelberg in Germany, has been awarded the EMBO Gold Medal for exceptional contribution to life sciences in Europe. Dey shared the award with Omaya Dudin from the University of Geneva in Switzerland.Considered among Europe’s most prestigious honours in life sciences, the EMBO Gold Medal is awarded by the European Molecular Biology Organisation (EMBO) annually to scientists early in their independent careers. The award is given to those based within the European Molecular Biology Conference, an inter-governmental organisation with 32 member states.

Dey has been awarded the medal in recognition of his outstanding work on the evolutionary origins of nuclear organisation and cell division, while Dudin has been recognised for his work shedding light on the evolutionary origins of multi-cellularity, according to a statement issued by the EMBO.

“The EMBO Council decided to award two candidates this year to recognise the scientific excellence as well as the open and fertile scientific collaboration between them,” said Marta Miączyńska, the EMBO Council Chair.

Dey is an evolutionary cell biologist interested in the origins of cell division and the group leader at the EMBL in Heidelberg (Germany) since 2021. He studied biochemistry at the University of Delhi, followed by a research Masters at the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bengaluru. He moved to Stanford University, US, for a doctorate and then to the University College, London, to work on ‘eukaryogenesis’, an evolutionary process by which simple, non-nucleated single-celled organisms transformed into complex cells containing a nucleus and other internal structures.

In fact, one of the recipients for the EMBO Gold Medal in 2025, Tanmay AM Bharat, is also a scientist of Indian origin. An alumnus of Delhi University, he is a programme leader in the Structural Studies Division of the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, UK.