JBS Haldane Lecture 2026 – Prof Carola Vinuesa

The Genetics Society is delighted to announce Prof Carola Vinuesa as the winner of the 2026 JBS Haldane Lecture Award.

Professor Carola Vinuesa is Assistant Research Director at the Francis Crick Institute (London), where she leads a research group as a Royal Society Wolfson Fellow. She obtained her medical degree from the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, completed clinical training in the UK, and earned a PhD from the University of Birmingham. After postdoctoral work at the Australian National University (ANU), she became Professor of Immunology and Head of Department, and co-founded the Centre for Personalised Immunology, with a sister centre later established in Shanghai. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of London, the Australian Academy of Science, the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences, and the UK Academy of Medical Sciences. Her research has uncovered key genetic and cellular mechanisms regulating antibody responses and autoimmunity, including the discovery of the ROQUIN/RC3H1 gene, TLR7 gain-of-function variants in lupus, and the CALM2 G114R variant, which contributed to the 2023 exoneration of Australian mother Kathleen Folbigg. Professor Vinuesa has received multiple prestigious awards, including the Australian Prime Minister’s Prize for Life Scientist of the Year, the Johann Anton Merck Prize (2023), the Lupus Insight Prize (2024), the National Prize in Medicine “Marqués de Valdecilla” (2025), and the FEBS/EMBO Women in Science Award. She also serves on advisory boards for leading research institutes and journals worldwide.