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Join us for the Croonian Prize Lecture delivered by Professor Edith Heard FRS.

The Croonian Medal and Lecture 2025 is awarded to Professor Edith Heard for being a leading figure in X-chromosome biology.

X-chromosome inactivation during early female development is an essential process that is required to achieve appropriate dosage between XX females and XY males, for X-linked gene products. The Heard lab is interested in understanding how the differential treatment of the two X chromosomes is established during development, how the X chromosome becomes silenced and how this is maintained stably, or reversed in certain circumstances, either normally or in a disease context such as cancer. The establishment of X-chromosome inactivation involves a long non-coding Xist RNA that triggers chromosome-wide chromatin re-organisation and gene silencing. Studying this process has revealed general principles of gene regulation, chromosome architecture and epigenetic mechanisms. The Heard lab’s insights into the nature of the chromosome-wide changes that affect the whole X chromosome. In particular we have studied the role of the Xist-recruited SPEN protein, that triggers gene silencing and dampens expression of genes that escape XCI. The loss of topologically associating domains (TADs) are also early events during XCI2. Our recent insights into the relationship between chromatin states, 3D chromosome organisation and the events underlying X-linked gene silencing and escape from XCI will be presented.


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