Tree of Life

PhD Student Amjad Khalaf shares how his research on microsporidia is creating new high-quality genomes to help better understand how they cause, and sometimes prevent, disease.

Filled with colour-coding chromosomes and genome re-arrangements, learn more about some of our resident moths and butterflies that have been genome sequenced at the Wellcome Sanger Institute. With a bit of luck, you could identify these colourful creatures yourself next time you are out and about.

Enter the absorbing world of sponges, the intricate animals that have evolved to inhabit all corners of our Earth’s waterways and oceans. Thanks to a worldwide collaboration of sponge scientists through the Aquatic Symbiosis Genomics project, which is led by the Wellcome Sanger Institute, more than 50 published high-quality sponge genomes and counting are now freely accessible to the research community.

How do we get diverse samples into Sanger? We chat to the Sample Management team for the Tree of Life programme at Sanger to understand more about how we manage to get samples of eukaryotic organisms for sequencing from all around the world.

We explore how the Barcoding for Beginners programme and BIOSCAN project are using genetic tools to investigate insect diversity across the UK.

To get into the spirit of the spooky season, read about some curiously creepy creatures whose DNA has been sequenced by researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute.