Publication highlights

Go inside our research

Explore a selection of research case studies from the past five years.

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Researchers at the Crick are tackling the big questions about human health and disease, and new findings are published every week.

Our faculty have picked some of the most significant papers published by Crick scientists, all of which are freely available thanks to our open science policy.

Targeting the interplay between HIF and mTOR in kidney cancer

The HIF and mTOR signalling pathways are frequently dysregulated in cancer. In the most common kidney cancer, clear cell renal carcinoma, HIF is upregulated, and mTOR is hyperactivated, but their interplay is poorly understood, in part because of difficulties in simultaneous measurement of global and mRNA-specific translation. Yoichiro Sugimoto and Peter Ratcliffe describe a new method, high-resolution polysome profiling followed by sequencing of the 5′ ends of mRNAs (HP5), that addresses this challenge, and use it to analyse the interplay of HIF and mTOR in kidney cancer cell lines. They show that specific classes of HIF1A and HIF2A target genes have different sensitivity to mTOR, in a manner that suggests combined use of HIF2A and mTOR inhibitors is a rational therapeutic strategy for kidney cancer.

Isoform-resolved mRNA profiling of ribosome load defines interplay of HIF and mTOR dysregulation in kidney cancer

Published in Nature Structural and Molecular Biology

Published

Scalable and robust SARS-CoV-2 testing in an academic center

This paper decribes how we were able to successfully repurpose the Crick to increase the capacity for Sars-CoV-2 testing in unpredented times.

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Published in Nature Biotechnology

Published

COVID testing

Pandemic peak SARS-CoV-2 infection and seroconversion rates in London frontline health-care workers

This important paper showed very high levels of infection amongst healthcare workers in a local hospital. It has influenced government policy – asymptomatic healthcare workers are to be screened as per our recommendation (announced October 12th).

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Published in The Lancet

Published

Marked and rapid effects of pharmacological HIF-2α antagonism on hypoxic ventilatory control

The paper establishes isoform specificity of the action of Hypoxia Inducible Factors in specific physiological control mechanisms; specifically the non-redundant role of HIF2 in ventilatory acclimatisation to sustained hypoxia. It also establishes that pharmaceutical antagonism of HIF2 using agents which are undergoing trials in clinical renal cancer have the ability to disrupt normal human ventilatory control.

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Published in Journal of Clinical Investigation

Published

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Research case studies 

Explore a selection of recent case studies that spotlight particular areas of research at the Crick.