Deborah Caswell, UK/US postdoc
Dr Deborah Caswell works in one of the UK’s leading cancer labs, led by Cancer Research UK’s chief clinician. She’s investigating whether exercise can fight cancer and developing new immunotherapy treatments for lung cancer, work funded by an EU grant. She is a dual UK/US citizen who came to the Crick after completing her PhD at Stanford.
“I love Britain and I came here planning to build a life and career,” says Debbie. “I had been excited at the prospect of applying for a position at one of the UK’s many brilliant universities such as Cambridge or UCL once my postdoc at the Crick ends. But if there is a hard Brexit, I will be looking for my next position in continental Europe or the US.”
Debbie also wrote a piece for the Financial Times on Brexit, published in October 2018.
Caetano Reis e Sousa, EU group leader
Portuguese scientist Caetano Reis e Sousa leads a lab looking at how the immune system works, to develop better vaccines and cancer therapies. He is a distinguished scientist who won the prestigious Louis-Jeantet Prize for Medicine in 2017. He was awarded a €2.5m ERC Advanced Grant in 2010 and another in 2018, and has hosted over 8 Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions Fellows in his lab who have brought in an additional €1.5m of EU funds for research.
“Brexit is a constant source of worry for me, both for my family and for my lab,” says Caetano.
“I am concerned that our ability to attract the most talented scientists could be damaged by proposed immigration restrictions, and the atmosphere created by Brexit also makes me wonder whether this is the country to continue to bring up my children. I am also concerned that I may lose access to EU funding after Brexit, despite the government’s guarantee that any lost funding will be compensated. I am not confident that any replacement funding would realistically arrive in a reasonable timeframe.”
Jasmin Zohren, EU postdoc
Jasmin Zohren is working to understand our DNA, looking at how its organisation differs between species and between males and females. She is currently comparing opossum DNA with human and mouse DNA to see which features are conserved, to better understand how and why they evolved.
Jasmin is a German-born scientist who has worked across Europe on a range of projects spanning cancer, plant science and sex chromosome evolution.
She was offered her current position on the day of the Brexit referendum and spent a long time deciding whether or not to stay in the UK, but her long-term plans have changed. She came to the UK with the aim of settling down and building a life here, but since Brexit she now plans to return to Germany once she finishes her work at the Crick.