Francis Crick Prize Lecture: Unravelling the origins of childhood cancer

Name: Francis Crick Prize Lecture: Unravelling the origins of childhood cancer
Start: 2025-10-10T18:30:00+01:00
End: 2025-10-10T19:30:00+01:00
Location: 6-9 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y5 London, United Kingdom

Schedule

Fri Oct 10 2025 at 06:30 pm to 07:30 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

6-9 Carlton House Terrace, SW1Y5 London, United Kingdom | London, EN

Professor Sam Behjati, winner of the Francis Crick Medal, will deliver his prize lecture on 10 October 2025, at the Royal Society in London, at 6.30pm.
Professor Behjati is a Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Clinical Professor of Paediatric Oncology at the University of Cambridge and an Honorary Consultant Paediatric Oncologist at Cambridge University Hospitals.
The Francis Crick Medal and Lecture is awarded annually in any field in the biological sciences. Preference is given to genetics, molecular biology and neurobiology, the general areas in which Francis Crick worked, and to fundamental theoretical work, which was the hallmark of Crick’s science.
Professor Behjati is recognised with the Francis Crick Medal for fundamental discoveries into the developmental roots of childhood cancer.
Cancer is a leading cause of death in children in the UK. It is thought to arise before birth during human development. However, the precise origin of most types of childhood cancer is unknown.
Advances in our ability to read DNA and process vast genetic data sets have enabled investigations into the origins of childhood cancer. This includes retrospective lineage tracing approaches that build on using naturally occurring errors in DNA (mutations) as barcodes of human development.
In this lecture, Professor Behjati will present some of the insights that retrospective lineage tracing has delivered. These discoveries may pave the way for early detection and prevention of childhood cancer.
This lecture is free to attend. Registration is recommended if attending in person, otherwise availability cannot be guaranteed. Doors will open to the public at 6.00pm.
The lecture will also be livestreamed on the Royal Society website and on the Royal Society YouTube channel.