IMBA welcomes Kalki Kukreja as the institute’s first APART-USA scholar. She joins Nicolas Rivron’s lab at IMBA through the APART-USA Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW). The program supports outstanding researchers from the United States who continue their scientific careers in Austria. With this award, Kukreja will carry out her research as a postdoctoral fellow in the lab of Nicolas Rivron at IMBA, where she will study the earliest stages of human development. 

Human life begins as a single cell, yet within a short time this cell gives rise not only to the embryo itself, but also to the tissues that support it, such as the placenta and yolk sac. Very early on, cells begin to make decisions about what they will become. How these decisions are made — and how the correct balance of cell types is achieved — remains one of the central questions in developmental biology. 

In her APART-USA–funded project, Kukreja will investigate how early human cells choose their fate and how timing and strength of developmental signals influence this process. To do this, she will combine stem-cell-based models that mimic early embryos with single-cell analysis methods. Her goal is to better understand how embryonic tissues form in the right proportions, and why errors in these early steps can lead to implantation failure and miscarriage. 

By rebuilding early developmental systems in the lab, Kukreja’s work aims to shed light on fundamental processes that are normally hidden from view, opening new perspectives on early human development. 

About Kalki Kukreja 

Kalki Kukreja grew up in Punjab, India, and studied Biochemical Engineering at IIT Delhi, where she completed both her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. She then moved to the United States to pursue a PhD in Biology at Harvard University. During her doctoral work, she studied how the early cell types emerge during embryonic development using zebrafish embryos and single-cell approaches. She now joins IMBA as a postdoc in Nicolas Rivron’s lab, where she continues to study how complex biological systems emerge from simple beginnings.

About the APART-USA Fellowship 

APART-USA is a funding program of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (ÖAW) designed to support excellent postdoctoral researchers from the United States who continue their work at Austrian universities and research institutes. The fellowships run for up to four years and provide substantial funding to enable ambitious, independent research projects. The program aims to strengthen Austria’s research landscape by attracting outstanding international scientists and fostering long-term scientific exchange.