Madeline Lancaster, Joint Head of the LMB’s Cell Biology Division, has been announced as one of the 2026 recipients of the Suffrage Science Award in the Life Sciences category. The Suffrage Science Award, supported by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences (LMS), celebrates the scientific achievements of women in science, aiming to encourage more women to pursue science. Madeline received her award at a ceremony on Monday 9th March 2026 at the Dorothy Crowfoot-Hodgkin Building, Department of Biochemistry, University of Oxford.
Madeline commented: “I am honoured to receive this award. It is a recognition of my incredible team as well as the many women scientists whose dedication, brilliance, and resilience continue to shape and strengthen scientific progress every day.”
The Suffrage Science Award was created to generate ‘a self-perpetuating cohort of talent’ and each year, the 11 awardees are nominated by previous winners in recognition of their scientific achievements and their ability to inspire others. Each winner is awarded an heirloom Suffrage Science jewellery item, designed and handcrafted by Central St Martin’s, University of London. These heirlooms are passed from nominator to winner, creating a ‘family tree’ for each item.
Madeline’s research focuses on the use of cerebral organoids – 3D laboratory models that replicate key aspects of the developing brain, including the neocortex – to better understand the biological mechanisms that shape the unique features of the human brain. By comparing human brain organoids with those derived from non-human apes and other primates, her group aims to uncover what distinguishes the human brain at the tissue, cellular, epigenetic and genetic level. Their work has already revealed important differences in the behaviour of the stem cells that give rise to neurons, leading to increased neuron production and helping to explain why humans have such large brains compared to other mammals.
Her group also studies the cellular mechanisms underlying uniquely human neurodevelopmental conditions, such as autism and intellectual disability. In addition, they use brain organoids to investigate viral infections of the brain, including how SARS-CoV-2 infects neural cells and how this may contribute to the long-term neurological effects associated with COVID‑19.
Madeline earned her Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from the University of California, San Diego. She then completed a postdoc at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (IMBA) in Vienna, where she developed the first cerebral organoids to advance the study of brain development. In 2015, she joined the LMB as a Group Leader, becoming Joint Head of the Cell Biology Division in 2025.
Madeline’s research achievements have already been recognised by several other awards, including the Cheryll Tickle Medal from the British Society for Developmental Biology in 2023, the Blavatnik Award for Young Scientists in the Life Sciences category in 2022 and the Valee Scholar Award in 2021. In 2019, she joined EMBO’s Young Investigator Programme and was elected a member of EMBO in 2022.
Previous LMB researchers recognised by Suffrage Science include Marta Shahbazi in 2024, Kelly Nguyen in 2022, Lori Passmore in 2016, Sarah Teichmann in 2012 and alumnae Rebecca Voorhees in 2018 and Airlie McCoy in 2016.
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