Wellcome Sanger Institute

Cambridge

Who we are:

The Wellcome Sanger Institute (Sanger Institute) is a research centre which uses genomics to improve our understanding of the world. The Tree of Life programme focuses on the use of full genome sequencing to improve the knowledge of biodiversity, and to use this expertise to scale up to a world-wide perspective.

What we’re doing in the Darwin Tree of Life project:

The Sanger team has a leading role in coordinating the project, and in helping to build the core informatics processes which support the project. Members of our group are involved in almost every stage of the endeavour. Our core laboratory team processes samples received from the Genome Acquisition Laboratories, extracts DNA and RNA, and prepares them for sequencing by our Scientific Operations team. Our bioinformatics teams are then responsible for the assembly and polishing of the genome sequences, and for submitting them to ENA. We then work with colleagues to analyse and understand the biology of the genomes in evolutionary and ecological contexts.

Why we’re invested in the Darwin Tree of Life project:

We seek to build collaborations between researchers of all types to show the possibilities produced by genome sequencing, and to use these sequences to answer all sorts of evolutionary genetics questions. DTol is our flagship project, where we will develop the processes needed to achieve our larger goals of being a major player in the global Earth Biogenome Project.