Gitta Stockinger, senior group leader at the Crick, will join the Institute’s scientific leadership team as Associate Research Director in charge of special projects.
Gitta heads the Crick’s AhRimmunity Laboratory where her team study the complex interactions between environmental signals and immune as well as tissue responses. Their research is helping us understand how these processes can become dysregulated, leading to inflammatory disorders particularly in barrier organs such as the skin, the gut and the lung.
Recently, Gitta has had a central role developing the Crick’s COVID-19 research strategy.
“I’m really looking forward to getting involved,” says Gitta. “At the moment my primary focus will be building on the fantastic communal Crick effort in combating SARS-CoV-2 in order to secure strategic funding for the future.”
Gitta has nearly 30 years of continuous service since joining the MRC National Institute for Medical Research (now part of the Francis Crick Institute) in 1991. Before then, she was a member of the prestigious Basel Institute for Immunology in Switzerland.
Inflammation and infection have been a focus of Gitta’s research for a number of years and her team have made many important discoveries including the differentiation of a distinct T-cell subset, Th17; and highlighting the importance of the transcription factor aryl hydrocarbon receptor (AhR) as an environmental sensor in the immune system.
Gitta is also a fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences, EMBO and the Royal Society.
“I am delighted that Gitta will be joining our senior scientific leadership team,” says Paul Nurse, Director of the Crick. “Since the Crick first opened, Gitta has been a valuable voice advising and leading our scientific activities. Her achievements are an inspiration for young scientists and her collaborations epitomise our approach of discovery without boundaries. I look forward to working with her supporting our scientists as they strive to deliver their research.”
