We are delighted to announce that the winner of the 2026 WICB Early Career medal is…..

Rashmi Priya  

Rashmi is a Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute. After completing her university education in India, she moved to Australia to pursue her PhD with Alpha Yap. Her doctoral research led to the identification of novel Rho GTPase regulatory mechanisms that maintain epithelial junctional integrity and homeostasis.

For her postdoctoral training, Rashmi moved to Germany to work with Didier Stainier, where she focused on heart morphogenesis. Building on her expertise in cell biology, Rashmi’s work demonstrated that differential actomyosin tension is sufficient to initiate cardiac trabeculation, a morphogenetic process critical for heart function.

Rashmi started her group at the Francis Crick Institute in February 2021. Her lab’s overall goal is to understand how organ form and function emerge during embryonic development. By combining the excellent tractability of the developing zebrafish heart with cross-disciplinary approaches from cell biology, biophysics, and theoretical modelling, Rashmi’s lab has made significant conceptual progress in understanding how a functional heart is built. Her team has uncovered cellular and mechanical transitions driving functional maturation of the heart and recently reported how mechanical fracturing of the extracellular matrix patterns the developing myocardial tissue. Additionally, her lab is currently exploring several other questions, including how nuclei and cells adapt their mechanical properties to cope with the dynamic forces of a beating heart, how macroscopic trabecular architecture is established and how the heart senses how much to grow and regrow.

Rashmi’s work has been recognised by the IZFS Chi-Bin Chien Award, a BHF Early Career Award, and a Wellcome Discovery Award.

Rashmi is dedicated to mentoring and advocating for early-career researchers, particularly those from underrepresented backgrounds, guiding them through career transitions and professional development.

You can read more about Rashmi’s Scientific journey here and about her work here or follow her on Bluesky.

The WICB Early Career Medal was established in 2015 to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the BSCB. It is awarded to an outstanding female cell biologist who has started her own research group in the UK within the last seven years.

You can watch Rashmi’s  medal lecture from Dynamic Cell VI in April 2026 below: