Five new group leaders to launch ambitious research programmes at the Crick
The Francis Crick Institute has announced the researchers selected to establish new labs at the institute, following an international recruitment round that attracted a record number of applications.
Candidates progressed through multiple stages of interviews, presentations and discussions before five were selected to launch research groups at the Crick in 2026 and 2027.
Together, the new group leaders span disciplines including artificial intelligence, neuroscience, cardiovascular research, metabolism and cell biology. Their work tackles questions ranging from how brains evolved and how cells divide, to how heart disease develops and how complex biological data can be transformed into new insights about health and disease.
Edith Heard, Director and CEO of the Crick, said: “The Crick was founded on the belief that giving talented scientists the freedom, support and collaborative environment to pursue bold ideas leads to transformative science. The breadth and quality of ideas we saw through this recruitment process was extraordinary.
“The scientists joining us stood out because they are tackling fundamental questions with the potential to reshape entire fields that are of biomedical importance. They all bring an exciting mix of curiosity, technical innovation and scientific ambition, as well as a collaborative and interdisciplinary spirit, and they will add enormously to the scientific discourse of the institute. I'm delighted to welcome Katya, Joshua, Vikram, Sami and James to the Crick, and I can't wait to host them and watch their research develop over the coming years.”
Katya Osipova joins the Crick from Harvard University. She studies how animals have evolved remarkable metabolic abilities, for example, the energy-intensive hovering flight of a hummingbird. Her research has revealed how natural selection has repeatedly found unexpected solutions to the challenge of generating and using energy, offering new perspectives on diseases linked to metabolism.
At the Crick, Katya will investigate metabolic adaptations across a wide range of species, using genomics, synthetic biology and artificial intelligence to uncover the genes and biological mechanisms that underpin them. Ultimately, she hopes to harness lessons from nature to better understand human disease and develop new ways of engineering biological systems like cells and tissues with a ‘programmable’ metabolism.
Katya said: "I am especially excited to be among the first to explore how artificial intelligence can be used to expand metabolic diversity. We will combine computational design with experimental validation, creating a lab-in-the-loop framework to tackle these questions. The Crick, with its unmatched intellectual environment and scientific infrastructure, is the perfect place to pursue this work.”
Joshua Bull is joining the Crick from the University of Oxford, where he has developed mathematical and AI-driven approaches to unlock new insights into the cellular geography of life - how cells are organised within tissues and how those patterns shape health and disease. His work sits at the intersection of mathematics, data science and biology, creating tools that help researchers make sense of increasingly large and complex biological datasets.
At the Crick, Joshua will develop new approaches for analysing spatial biology data, revealing how cells interact with one another in healthy tissues and in diseases such as cancer. By combining advanced mathematics with computational modelling, his research aims to uncover patterns that can improve diagnosis, explain why treatments work differently in different patients, and identify new opportunities for targeted therapies.
Joshua said: “We’ve recently seen an explosion in spatial biology data, providing an unprecedented view of how cells are organised within tissues. My research at the Crick will seek to uncover the principles that govern how communities of interacting cells shape health and disease. By combining mathematics, computation and biology, we hope to reveal patterns that are too complex to identify by eye but are critical for understanding diseases such as cancer. Our methods will interrogate the spatial organisation that underpins different diseases, providing a computational framework that turns observations of cell localisation into an understanding of the mechanisms driving cell behaviour.
“The Crick’s uniquely collaborative environment makes it an ideal place to tackle these questions, and I’m excited to work alongside researchers across disciplines to drive the insights that turn spatial biology into improved patient outcomes.”
Currently based at Harvard University, Vikram has explored how complex behaviour emerges in nature, from the collective dynamics of ant societies to the origins of animal brains. His work combines evolutionary biology, neuroscience and computation to investigate how biological complexity arises.
At the Crick, Vikram will establish a new research programme centred on his original neuroscience model in Hofstenia, a marine worm that offers a window into the earliest stages of brain evolution. By studying how distributed neural networks process information, generate behaviour, and coalesce into complex organs, he hopes to uncover fundamental principles that shape the emergence of brains and cognition.
Vikram said: “I work on the origins of brains. I want to know what forms of behaviour the first brains made possible, and how biological neural networks can evolve new computing powers. The Crick is the ideal home for a research programme like mine that doesn’t fit neatly within conventional disciplinary boundaries. The ambition of its scientists, the freedom it allows, and its core support are all extraordinary. I’m really looking forward to starting my group at the Crick.”
Sami Chaaban joins from the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge. His work combines structural biology, advanced imaging and computational approaches to understand the molecular machines that shape, organise and divide cells.
His laboratory at the Crick will focus on one of biology's most fundamental processes: how a single cell physically divides into two, a process called cytokinesis. Despite being essential for life, many of the underlying molecular mechanisms remain poorly understood. By revealing how the cell-division machinery is assembled and controlled, his group aims to uncover fundamental principles of cell biology and help explain how failures in this process contribute to cancer and developmental disorders.
Sami said: “Cell division is one of biology’s great feats of engineering: a cell must reorganise itself in space and time, then physically separate its contents with remarkable precision. I’m excited to build a team at the Crick that will combine structural biology, advanced imaging and computation to discover how this is achieved. The Crick’s open, collaborative environment and exceptional technology platforms make it the ideal place to connect molecular detail with the behaviour of living cells.”
James Cranley
James Cranley joins the Crick as a Clinical Group Leader from the University of Cambridge, where he is an NIHR Academic Clinical Lecturer in Cardiology and a clinician scientist specialising in heart rhythm disorders and inherited cardiac conditions. His research integrates single-cell and spatial genomics to understand how genetic and cellular heterogeneity underpins the heart’s conduction system and drives susceptibility to cardiac arrhythmias.
His team at the Crick will use machine learning and high-throughput genetic approaches to identify the genetic factors shaping the electrical activity of heart muscle cells, opening new avenues for the treatment of heart rhythm disorders.
James said: “Treatment options for heart rhythm disorders remain limited. By combining live-cell physiology, functional genomics and machine learning, we aim to identify new targets for therapies.
“I’m excited to bring these approaches together at the Crick, where collaboration across disciplines offers tremendous opportunities to turn biological discoveries into new ideas for treatment.’
