The CrickConnect team are delighted to be able to invite community members to join us for the institute's regular Crick Lecture.

Crick Lectures provide a broad insight into biomedical research from leading scientists. Not to be missed, the one-hour lectures are the event of the week for the Crick community to come together. The lectures aim to be accessible to scientists across different disciplines, while also offering something for the specialist.

This week Senior Group Leader and Professor at UCL's Division of Infection and Immunity, Paola Bonfanti gives this week's Crick lecture “The soul of immunity and tolerance: a stem cell story in the time of multi-omics”. 

There will also be an opportunity to catch up with colleagues and friends over refreshments after the Lecture from 17:00. If you are able to join us in person at the Crick please let us know at connect@crick.ac.uk so we can arrange access.

Paula Bonfanti

Paola graduated in Medicine and Surgery from the University of Milan and subsequently moved to the Sanford-Burnham Institute in La Jolla, California where she worked on differentiation of human embryonic stem cells. In 2008 she completed her PhD at the EPFL in Lausanne with a work demonstrating the plasticity and stemness of thymic epithelial cells.

After time at the Diabetes Research Centre in Brussels and UCL, Paola obtained a Starting Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) for her project on thymus biology and in 2017 joined the Francis Crick Institute as a group leader. 

Paola's group focuses on epithelial cells – specialised ‘lining’ cells found on the inner and outer surfaces of the body, such as the gut and skin. Although they are very common, epithelial cells are complex and still partly unknown, with distinctive differences between cells in different parts of the body.

They want to know more about how epithelial cells are produced from self-renewing stem cells in various organs and how they specialise into different roles, applying this knowledge to develop cell-based therapies to repair or regenerate damaged or faulty organs in the body.

They are particularly interested in epithelial cells in the thymus, a gland located in the chest, on top of the heart, that produces infection-fighting immune cells.