Professor Edith Heard CMG FRS FMedSci

Edith Heard is Chief Executive Officer at the Francis Crick Institute. She is an outstanding researcher who has studied the process that randomly silences one of the two X chromosomes in female mammals. This ensures that males and females express equivalent numbers of X-linked genes, preventing potential developmental abnormalities caused by having an extra X chromosome in females. She has supported the advancement of medical science through her leadership positions at the Collège de France, and as director of the Genetics and Developmental Biology department at the Institut Curie in Paris, bringing a deep understanding of European science.