Francis Crick Institute: Meet the scientists making discoveries that could change the world

Sitting in King’s Cross in the heart of London is Europe’s biggest biomedical research centre: The Francis Crick Institute.

Named after the renowned British scientist, the centre hosts more than 1,000 scientists working at the forefront of medical research.

Here, we focus on some of their work.

Cancer is now the second leading cause of death worldwide, with one in two British people diagnosed with the disease during their lifetime, according to Cancer Research UK. Deborah Caswell, a 31-year-old postdoctoral researcher, is investigating whether exercise could improve treatment. Her research explores whether mice living in cages with exercise wheels and climbing frames respond better to therapies that boost the immune system. Patients with advanced cancer begin losing weight and wasting away, a phenomenon called cachexia. As their weight drops it affects their treatment as they have to stop taking certain drugs.

Caswell’s initial results show active mice lose less weight. If the results are the same in human patients, it could prevent weight loss and allow treatment to continue for longer.

“I hope the results of my research will improve the quality of life for the millions of British citizens living with cancer today,” she said.

Another of the Institute’s cancer researchers is 27-year-old PhD student Esther Wershof. As a mathematician she thought she would end up working in the City, until she saw an advert for a job in academia. Now she works with biologists, using mathematical models to get a better understanding of how cancers spread. The body sees cancer as a wound, and sends fibroblast cells, which lay down collagen fibres, to “repair” it. The fibres often line up, serving as “highways” for the cancer to spread to other parts of the body. Esther studies the patterns of these fibres, hoping researchers could one day disrupt them.

“If we can make it harder for the tumour to spread, we can save lives,” she said.

Aaron Ferron, a 29-year-old laboratory research scientist, is studying retroviruses, ancient viruses that infected our ancestors millions of years ago and now make up about eight per cent of our DNA.

Some retroviruses can protect against infections, and Ferron is investigating whether they could treat HIV and similar viruses. “The goal would be to stop HIV completely,” he said.

In 2014, the “ice bucket challenge” swept over social media; people agreed to have icy cold water thrown on them to raise money for charity. The viral campaign raised nearly £95 million for a currently incurable condition: motor neurone disease, oramyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Patients slowly lose the ability to walk, eat and breathe as the disease causes a loss of cells in the brain and spinal cord. PhD student Doaa Taha, 28, has taken cells from ALS patients and re-programmed them into becoming nerve cells, allowing her to track the disease’s development at a cellular level. She is also collaborating find drugs that could slow ALS’s progression. She is excited her work could be translated from the lab to the bedside: “When you talk to patients and carers you understand the value of what you’re doing.”

Emily Frost, 24, a PhD student, is carrying out research she hopes will help women trying to conceive. Women are born with a finite number of follicles in their ovaries. They contain eggs which are released during ovulation.

The highest quality eggs are released first, leading to a huge drop-off in fertility with age — the dreaded “fertility cliff” women in their mid-thirties are warned about. Frost is trying to understand the biology of the ovary, studying the signals that control egg development in mice.

In future she hopes this could help improve fertility tests for women, and even help women delay their fertility window by preventing their follicles from developing until they are ready to start a family.

We all get a bit snappy when we need a snack. Jonny Kohl, a 36-year-old group leader, is finding out why, investigating how different states such as stress, sleep or hunger affect information processing in the brain and thus behaviour. He is studying how hormonal changes in pregnant mice cause specific maternal behaviours.

Down the line, his work could help biologists better understand the human brain and lead to better treatment of conditions like post-natal depression.

The Francis Crick Institute is the largest single biomedical research facility in Europe. Opened in 2016, it was created by a partnership of six top UK organisations, with one purpose: to investigate human health and disease. Inside, 1,250 scientists work across many fields to examine the causes of illnesses ranging from cancer to strokes and infections. Through acute examination, the Institute aims to create new methods of prevention, diagnosis and treatment.