Dr. Kalita, who is currently a postdoctoral researcher at the Laboratory of Bioinformatics and Genome Biology at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, previously completed her PhD in the group of Prof. Dr. Claudia Keller Valsecchi at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.

In her doctoral thesis, Dr. Kalita describes the discovery and characterization of SOA, the master regulator of dosage compensation (DC) in Anopheles gambiae mosquitoes—the major vectors of malaria. Dr. Kalita showed that SOA binds to the promoters of active X-chromosomal genes in males and upregulates their expression, and that loss of SOA leads to developmental delays in males. Surprisingly, loss of dosage compensation in mosquitoes is not lethal, in contrast to previous observations in model organisms. In addition, she summarized current knowledge on dosage compensation in insects and proposed a conceptual framework for identifying DC factors in non-model insect species.

The results of her research have been published in several high-profile scientific journals, including Nature and Genes & Development.

The GfG warmly congratulates Dr. Agata Kalita, who will receive the award in person from Prof. Dr. Elisabeth Gateff at the upcoming GfG Symposium “Epigenetics & Chromatin” in Giessen on September 26, 2025.