After 14 years in the role, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) director, Luis Serrano, will be stepping down next December. He will be succeeded by Professor Mónica Bettencourt-Dias, who led the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in Portugal between 2018 and 2023 and is currently Group Leader at the Gulbenkian Institute for Molecular Medicine.
Serrano, who during these years has consolidated the CRG position as an international biomedical research centre of excellence and promoted an entrepreneurial culture with the creation of six CRG spin-off companies, will maintain his research group at the centre.
“It has been a privilege to lead the CRG, and I am proud of the culture of curiosity, innovation and societal impact we have built together”
Luis Serrano, current CRG director
Winds of change
“This is an exciting time for the life sciences and biomedicine. Advances in genomics, artificial intelligence and technology are revolutionising our ability to decode and engineer genomes. This knowledge is essential to understanding life and building resilience in the face of a changing environment”, says Bettencourt-Dias. “The CRG, at the heart of Barcelona’s vibrant scientific community, is uniquely placed to lead this global effort. I look forward to working with its exceptional researchers and partners”, concludes the researcher, who has been appointed director after an 18-month long selection process.
“I am deeply honoured to be entrusted with leading the CRG in this exciting time for the life sciences and biomedicine, to push the boundaries of discovery and create lasting impact for society”
Mónica Bettencourt-Dias, newly appointed director of the CRG
Bettencourt-Dias, who has been for years at the frontline of the cell and molecular biology field, represents a generational and gender change, becoming the youngest person and the first woman to lead the CRG since it was founded in 2000. In a year when, for the first time, most of the principal investigators at the PRBB are women, the Portuguese is only the second woman at the forefront of a PRBB centre, after Denise Naniche became Scientific director of the ISGLobal in 2019.
The upcoming director is highly committed to connecting science and society and she has played a leading role in shaping European science policy, acting as Chair of EU-LIFE, the alliance of top life science institutes in Europe, and as a chair of the EMBO Policy Committee.
