While health and lifespan continue to improve in the UK, many challenges remain. More than one in four people will die from cancer. Heart and circulatory disease continue to blight many lives. Difficult-to-treat neurodegenerative diseases are growing in importance as the population ages. Many infectious agents remain serious threats to health.

Ashley had surgery for testicular cancer and took part in a Cancer Research UK clinical trial involving the chemotherapy drug cisplatin. He is now in remission.
© Cancer Research UK

The Francis Crick Institute will use new approaches to reveal why people stay healthy and what causes disease.

Extensive links with local clinical centres, as well as with pharmaceutical and biotech sectors, will provide routes through which findings from laboratory research can be progressed to the treatment and diagnosis of disease. The Institute will not itself house patient facilities, but a wealth of well-equipped specialist centres exist within a short distance.

We expect discoveries made at the Institute to be developed into many of the cures, vaccines and drugs from which the NHS and its patients will benefit for many years.

The Francis Crick Institute will play a part in tackling health inequalities in its local community. A 2007/08 report by Camden Primary Care Trust showed that life expectancy for men in St Pancras and Somers Town is 70.3 years: 11 years lower than for men in nearby Hampstead. In response, the building will include a community facility, provisionally called the Living Centre, to improve health and promote healthier living.

In addition, the Institute will work with other scientific and medical organisations to raise public awareness of important issues in health and disease.