The Crick magazine | Issue 1

Scientists in South Africa are working with the Crick to pioneer imaging technologies that will redefine how they detect and study diseases affecting their local communities – reshaping Africa’s research landscape and accelerating the hunt for better treatments. 

At the frontier of drug discovery, a new approach to targeting the toughest diseases using cyclic peptides. 

Researchers have identified a key regulator of intestinal repair, shedding light on how the body maintains gut health, and what goes wrong in conditions like IBD.  

Edith Heard, the Crick’s new Director and CEO, shares ten lessons from a life in science, spanning curiosity, courage, coffee, and the secrets of our genetic code. 

Fifty years after his first paper appeared in Nature, Nobel Laureate Paul Nurse reflects on how a quest to understand yeast cell division led him, unexpectedly, into the heart of the genomics revolution. 

Across the 3 billion ‘letters’ of our DNA, we each carry around 6 million variations. Researchers are unravelling their effects on our lives. 

Uncovering the elegant choreography of chaperones, the molecular guides that help proteins fold correctly, and what this means for understanding disease. 

Leanne Li’s unconventional idea, that cancer cells might interact with neurons, was once dismissed. Now her lab is merging cancer biology with neuroscience, and revealing a previously hidden layer of tumour complexity, with electrifying implications.