gurdon institute gurdon institute the gurdon institute (officially the wellcome/cancer research uk gurdon institute) is a research facility at the university of cambridge, specialising in developmental biology and cancer biology. gurdon instituteestablished1989directorjulie ahringerfaculty17key people julie ahringer andrea brand john gurdon steve jackson tony kouzarides eric miska ben simons daniel st johnston azim surani formerly calledwellcome trust and cancer research campaign institute of cancer and developmental biologyaddresstennis court road, cambridge cb2 1qnlocationcambridge, cambridgeshire, united kingdomwebsitewww.gurdon.cam.ac.uk history the institute was founded in 1989 to provide a rich, collaborative environment for scientists working in diverse but complementary specialities in the fields of developmental biology and cancer biology. it receives its primary funding from the wellcome trust and cancer research uk. in 2004 it was renamed in honour of john gurdon, joint winner of the 2012 nobel prize for medicine. as of 2019 the director is julie ahringer and the deputy director is eric miska. faculty as of 2020 there are 15 group leaders and 2 associate group leaders. group leaders: julie ahringer andrea brand jenny gallop john gurdon steve jackson tony kouzarides hansong ma eric miska emma rawlins ben simons daniel st johnston azim surani iva tchasovnikarova (beginning summer 2020) fengzhu xiong philip zegerman associate group leaders: martin hemberg john perry alumni former group leaders: michael akam enrique amaya nick brown rafael carazo salas thomas down martin evans charles ffrench-constant janet heasman meritxell huch ron laskey rick livesey anne mclaren masanori mishima nancy papalopulu eugenia piddini jonathon pines jordan raff jim smith chris wylie magdalena zernicka-goetz