The Francis Crick Institute is a biomedical research institute in London, England. The institute is named after Nobel Prize-winning scientist Francis Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA with James Watson.
The Crick was founded in 2015 as a partnership between six of the UK’s leading scientific organisations: Cancer Research UK, the Medical Research Council, Wellcome Trust, University College London (UCL), Imperial College London and King’s College London.
The institute has its origins in two predecessor institutes: The UK National Institute for Medical Research (NIMR) and The Wellcome Trust/Cancer Research UK Gurdon Institute. These institutes were merged to form the Crick in 2015.
The main aim of the Francis Crick Institute is to improve human health by understanding the fundamental biology underlying diseases. To achieve this, the institute undertakes world-leading research in four main areas: cancer; infectious diseases; neurodegeneration; and developmental biology and genetics.
Cancer research at the Crick is focused on understanding how cancers develop and finding new ways to treat them. Infectious disease research includes studies on viruses such as Ebola and Zika, as well as bacteria such as tuberculosis and MRSA. Neurodegeneration research is exploring conditions such as Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and motor neurone disease. And finally, developmental biology and genetics research is investigating how humans develop from embryos into babies, and what goes wrong in genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy.
In addition to undertaking cutting-edge basic scienceresearch, a key aim of the Francis Crick Institute is to turn discoveries made in the lab into new treatments for patients faster than ever before. To do this, the institute has established strong links with hospitals across London through its Clinical Translation Team. This team works with clinicians to identify opportunities for applying our scientific discoveries to patient care – for example by developing new diagnostic tests or clinical trials of new therapies