Magdalena Bezanilla

Magdalena Bezanilla is a biologist and the Ernest Evert Just 1907 Professor at Dartmouth College. Bezanilla is known for her research into molecular mechanisms that affect cell shape.

Early life and education Magdalena's father, biophysicist Dr. Francisco Bezanilla, conducted studies in his lab located in Cape Cod, Massachusetts. His research was over the largest nerve cell in the animal kingdom which is located on squids. This is where her interest in laboratory work was found.

Career and research Bezanilla was an associate professor of biology at University Of Massachusetts, Amherst. Bezanilla runs her own laboratory at Dartmouth College that focuses on how plant cells grow. Magdalena and her colleagues developed a technique called multi-gene silencing to simultaneously silence genes in a multicellular organism.

Her work focuses on the configuration of plant cell walls and supporting structures that govern a cell’s shape, internal organization, and patterns of growth and development. She has also pioneered the use of a moss called Physcomitrella as a model system in her research. Bezanilla developed the use of moss physcomitrella patens as a model system to figure out proteins in the plant cell regulate growth and morphogenesis. and in 2026, she was named an Honorary Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Bezanilla was the first woman to win the Golden Spore Award in 2022 from the International Molecular Moss Science Society. She also received the CAREER award from the National Science Foundation.