King Charles received a cheerful welcome as he stepped out for a visit to London today – which prompted a hilarious reaction. On Wednesday, hundreds of staff and scientists paused their work and peered over the steel-and-glass balconies as Charles was given insight into a decade of discovery at Europe’s biggest biomedical research facility at the Francis Crick Institute in King’s Cross.
The King was also presented with a photograph of the late Queen Elizabeth II as she opened the institute 10 years ago. According to lipreader Nicola Hickling, the King gave a hilarious reaction to the noisy crowd who welcomed him.
Nicola noted that the King said: “Hello! What a mighty roar from your fellows this morning.” He then approached a woman wearing a cream jacket, who bowed as he greeted her.
Amused by the enthusiastic reception, the King seemingly joked: “You have the noisiest crowd,” and adds that he wanted what they had for breakfast. The 87-year-old jokingly added a seven-word quip: “I want what they had for breakfast”.
During his visit, the King also saw lung tissue slides on a screen inside a lab, as clinical director Professor Charles Swanton and deputy research director Professor Sonia Gandhi explained their latest collaboration.
It brings together AI and laboratory research to explore how ageing and environmental inflammation can shape diseases such as cancer and Parkinson’s.
The monarch also listened to a presentation that showed the breadth of discovery science at the institute. It showed everything from understanding how the earliest human tissues organise and develop to exploring how rising global temperatures could influence the immune system and human health.
King Charles was also given the opportunity to see a new model of a human amniotic sac made from stem cells by scientists who are looking into regeneration and how we grow from an embryo.
Speaking after his visit, Edith Heard, the institute’s director, said it had been “an honour” to welcome Charles “as we mark 10 years of discovery at the Crick and look ahead to the opportunities and challenges of the next decade”.
She added: “His Majesty’s longstanding interest in the relationship between the environment and human health made this a particularly meaningful opportunity to share our research and our ambition to understand how our environments and life experiences interact with our biology to shape health and disease.”
The King and Queen Camilla have recently returned from a nine-day tour to the Caribbean.
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