The Marie Johansson Prize is giving visibility and support to outstanding early-career researchers. The award of £1000 is given to one postdoctoral scientist each year, for their outstanding contribution to Developmental Biology. The awardee will be selected from applications including their CV and 1-page summary of their postdoctoral research achievements.

Marie Johansson was an outstanding postdoctoral researcher and inspirational colleague in the field of developmental biology. Her intellectual originality and relentless passion for biological discoveries was coupled to a great concern for scientific rigour. Marie uncovered a non-canonical function for Dkk1, a signalling protein central to many biological mechanisms (link). She demonstrated that, independent of its known Wnt antagonist role, Dkk1 modifies cell polarity and cell-cell interaction. Her terminal disease did not reduce her determination to identify the molecular interactions driving this function. This Prize honors her memory by highlighting individuals who are matching Marie’s scientific originality, outstanding achievements and impeccable scientific rigour.

Awards are an effective and important way of recognising outstanding scientific achievement at any stage of an individual’s career and this prize is the BSDB recognition for leading postdoctoral scientists.