Francis Crick Institute

The Francis Crick Institute
Established2010 (14 years ago) (2010)
TypeResearch institute
Registration no.England and Wales: 1140062
FocusMedical research
Location
Coordinates51°31′53″N 0°07′44″W / 51.5315°N 0.1289°W / 51.5315; -0.1289
Chief Executive
Sir Paul Nurse
Websitecrick.ac.uk
Francis Crick Institute main building

The Francis Crick Institute (formerly the UK Centre for Medical Research and Innovation) is a biomedical research centre in London, which was established in 2010 and opened in 2016.[1][2][3][4] The institute is a partnership between Cancer Research UK, Imperial College London, King's College London (KCL), the Medical Research Council, University College London (UCL) and the Wellcome Trust.[5] The institute has 1,500 staff, including 1,250 scientists, and an annual budget of over £100 million,[6] making it the biggest single biomedical laboratory in Europe.[2]

The institute is named after the molecular biologist, biophysicist, and neuroscientist Francis Crick, co-discoverer of the structure of DNA, who shared the 1962 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with James Watson and Maurice Wilkins. Unofficially, the Crick has been called Sir Paul's Cathedral, a reference to Sir Paul Nurse and St Paul's Cathedral in London.[7]

  1. ^ "Agreement signed to establish UKCMRI". Crick. Retrieved 8 July 2019.
  2. ^ a b Jha, Alok (19 June 2010). "Plans for largest biomedical research facility in Europe unveiled". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 11 August 2010.
  3. ^ "Our building". Crick.
  4. ^ Walsh, Fergus (1 September 2016). "The Crick: Europe's biggest biomedical lab opens". BBC News.
  5. ^ "Three's company: Imperial, King's join UCL in £700m medical project". Times Higher Education. 15 April 2011. Retrieved 16 April 2011.
  6. ^ Cite error: The named reference pr5 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  7. ^ Callaway, Ewen (2015). "Europe's superlab: Sir Paul's cathedral". Nature. 522 (7557): 406–408. Bibcode:2015Natur.522..406C. doi:10.1038/522406a. PMID 26108834.