James Briscoe is a senior group leader at the Francis Crick Institute. He obtained a BSc in Microbiology and Virology from the University of Warwick, UK. Following his PhD research in Ian Kerr’s laboratory at the Imperial Cancer Research Fund, London, he undertook postdoctoral training at Columbia University, New York, USA, with Thomas Jessell.

In 2000 he moved to the Medical Research Council’s National Institute for Medical Research to establish his own research group and in 2001 he was elected an EMBO Young Investigator. He was awarded the EMBO Gold Medal in 2008 and elected to EMBO in 2009. In 2018 he became Editor-in-Chief of Development.

His research interests include the molecular and cellular mechanisms of embryonic development with a particular focus on the developing spinal cord. To address these questions, he uses a range of experimental and computational techniques with model systems that include mouse and chick embryos as well as mouse and human embryonic stem cells.