One year ago, on 1 April 2015, the Francis Crick Institute came
to life. On this date, we transferred 1,200 staff from two
institutes, the London Research Institute and the National
Institute for Medical Research, to become official employees of the
Crick.
Since that milestone, Crick researchers have won a number of the
world's most prestigious scientific awards, including a Nobel Prize
for Tomas Lindahl (from our Clare Hall lab), the Louis-Jeantet
Prize for Medicine for John Diffley (Clare Hall lab), the Hooke
Medal for Thomas Surrey (Lincoln's Inn Fields lab), and the Brain
Prize for Timothy Bliss (Mill Hill lab).
These awards were in recognition of the outstanding research
carried out previously in our legacy institutes. In the last 12
months, we have also seen many Crick researchers continuing to
break scientific boundaries:
- In a science first, Dr Kathy Niakan received approval from the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority to use a genome
editing technique called CRISPR in human embryos in order to
explore the very earliest stage of human development.
- Professor Charles Swanton published a key discovery into the
genetic makeup of tumours that has the potential to aid the
development of personalised cancer immunotherapy.
- Dr Peter Cherepanov, leading an international team, discovered
important new detail on how retroviruses - such as HIV - take over
healthy cells.
- Professor Mike Blackman discovered that malarial parasites need
a protein calls MSP1 to burst from red blood cells and infects new
ones. The discovery solves the long-standing question of how
parasites escape and provides a new target for anti-malarial
drugs.
These examples are just a few of the research developments
during the year: in total, Crick researchers have published over
more than 300 primary research papers since April 2015.
One of the Crick's strategic priorities is to ensure that our
discoveries are translated as quickly as possible into benefits for
human health. In the last year, we have created a translation
department and have already launched our first translation
projects, including open science collaborations with GSK and
AstraZeneca.
Of course, none of these scientific achievements would be
possible without all our support staff, who have been working hard
over the last year to ensure a smooth transition for scientific
staff, as well as preparing for our move into the new building
later this year.
Developing a brand new biomedical research institute is a
massive undertaking. The Crick Lab, our new building, is more
complex than the Shard and has more rooms than Buckingham Palace,
and it has required skilled architects, engineers and construction
workers, acting in partnership with our own staff, to make the
vision a reality.
While the construction has been underway, we have also had to
plan the logistics of moving science and operations from four sites
into one. This planning needs to take into account the timelines of
existing experiments as well as the safe and timely relocation or
acquisition of large, complex scientific equipment and everything
else that allows science to happen.
Despite the incredible complexity of planning around this, we
are making good progress. The finishing touches are being put to
the building, and we should receive the keys in June, so that we
can start to move in July. Migrating more than 1,250 staff will
take a considerable amount of time but we expect the first
scientists will be working at their lab benches by late summer and
that everyone will be in by early 2017.
Before the doors have even opened, however, the building has
already won an award. We received the 2016 London First Investment
in London's Future Award for "a visionary regeneration or
development which reinforces London's competitiveness in the long
term".
We have also welcomed many new faces the Crick in the last 12
months. A total of 19 Crick-university attachments have been
selected, which includes six secondments, 10 satellite groups and
three sabbaticals. This means around 60 employees from our three
university partners will be moving into the new building this
year.
We will have 44 PhD studentships available from September and
our graduate student recruitment is well underway. We received more
than 1,300 applications and 132 applicants were invited to
interview at the end of January.
Looking ahead to the next 12 months, we still have a huge amount
to achieve as we move into our new building. There are so many
exciting scientific opportunities and we look forward to sharing
our research findings with you in the future.