The Medal is awarded for outstanding contribution to the development of molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry and biophysics.

 It is awarded annually to Polish scientists for outstanding research achievements in the field of molecular biology, cell biology, biochemistry and biophysics. The medal was founded by the Committee of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. After the reorganization of the committees of the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Committee of Molecular Cell Biology of the Polish Academy of Sciences took over the responsibility of awarding the medal.

Magdalena Rakowska-Boguta graduated from the University of Warsaw and since 1980 she has been working at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. In 1987 she defended her PhD thesis in yeast genetics. At that time she developed her interest in nuclear-mitochondrial interactions and yeast prions. In the years 1988-1990 she completed her postdoctoral training in the laboratory of Anita Hopper at Pennsylvania State University, where she started working on tRNA biogenesis in yeast. Since 1992 she has been leading her own group at the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, focusing on the regulation of tRNA transcription in yeast. Main discovery of her is Maf1 protein, a general and direct negative regulator of RNA polymerase III transcription. In 2015 she became elected EMBO member. For 15 years Magdalena Rakowska-Boguta taught courses in genetics and molecular biology at the Warsaw University of Technology.

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