Sanger Life

Meet the next generation of genomic scientists who are benefiting from the Wellcome Sanger Institute founder, John Sulston's legacy. Beatriz Rodrigues Estevam was awarded the Sanger Prize in 2024, and joined the Tree of Life Programme to work alongside Mark Blaxter’s research group. During her three-month Sanger Prize placement, she is building data pipelines while learning and adapting new techniques for researchers to study the fascinating biology of nematode worms.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping how we analyse biological data – from predicting protein structures to uncovering insights from vast genomic datasets. Ronnie Crawford, Science Solutions Lead at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, bridges AI and genomics. His work covers predicting protein stability from sequence data and building communities around AI‑driven research. From a reluctant programmer to an AI innovator, Ronnie’s path shows how career flexibility can lead to new opportunities in computational biology.

What do heat, noise and motion have in common? These forms of energy all make brilliant micro:bit coding challenges for young learners. Recently, a team from the Wellcome Sanger Institute invited school-aged children for a morning of fun coding at the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge.

Genomics research generates vast datasets, particularly from single-cell and spatial technologies, with artificial intelligence (AI) offering new ways to analyse them. Data experts provide crucial support to clean, analyse and interpret biological information to generate useful insights. But what does a bioinformatician do? And do biologists still need to learn some basic coding? We caught up with Keerthi Priya Chakala, a bioinformatician at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, to find out more.

The basement. The setting for every horror movie. While we all shout at the main character to not go down there to inspect the strange noise, sometimes it is all too enticing. At the Wellcome Sanger Institute, the basement noise is a combination of spinning sounds, clicking and humming – and Craig David playing on the radio. This is where Colin Barker’s workshop is and the hub of some very exciting engineering projects.

This Pride Month we caught up with Linda Grootegoed, a member of the Campus LGBTQ+ Network Operations Group, to talk about why such initiatives are important and how we can all advocate for a more inclusive environment