ProfessorCristina Lo Celso

Cristina Lo Celso FMedSci trained at the Cancer Research UK London Research Institute and Harvard University. In 2009 she started her independent research group at Imperial College London, where she is now Professor of Stem Cell Biology in the department of Life Sciences, and co-director of the Centre for Haematology in the department of Immunology and Inflammation.

She pioneered the use of intravital microscopy and quantitative imaging to achieve the first observations of haematopoietic stem cell (HSC) - and leukaemia-niche interactions in situ in real time, and of infection- and leukaemia- driven changes in HSC-niche interactions, highlighting the bone marrow microenvironment as a potential therapeutic target. She contributed to uncovered multi-cellular dynamics in healthy and malignant BM microenvironments and beyond. Her interdisciplinary approach combines mouse bone marrow intravital microscopy techniques, computational image analysis, molecular profiling and mathematical modelling of the HSC niche. Prof. Lo Celso’s publications have been cited over 9,000 times.

She is the first woman to have received the Foulkes Medal award (2017); she received the ISEH New Investigator award in 2017, presented the DGZ Carl Zeiss Lecture 2018 and received the Royal Microscopical Society Life Sciences Medal 2019. She received the Australian Intravital Microscopy Symposium Goppert-Mayer medal in 2023. She regularly engages in outreach activities and is keen to interact with the public, patients and industry. She has contributed to several high impact public engagement activities including the Imperial Festival (thousands of visitors over a weekend); ‘Beautiful Science’ and ‘Illumination’ art collaborative projects; podcasts e.g., Naked Scientist; AMS SciLives website. She launched the Imperial Centre for Haematology acute leukaemia PPIE program.  She is a satellite group leader of the Francis Crick Institute.

For more information on the lab, including details of any open position, visit our group website.