Sanger Science
27 January 2026Imagine being able to pinpoint exactly where in an aggressive brain tumour certain genes are turned on – like mapping a city’s most active neighbourhoods at rush hour. That is the promise of spatial transcriptomics, breakthrough technologies that are changing how scientists understand tissues, health and disease, and development.
15 January 202611.3 min readWhen most people think about genetic changes, or mutations, they imagine inherited conditions that are passed on from parents to offspring. However, the vast majority of mutations in our DNA are not inherited at all. Instead, they arise quietly, cell-by-cell throughout our lifetime. These are somatic mutations, and they are one of the most important – yet least understood – forces acting inside our bodies.
1 April 20256.5 min readArtificial intelligence (AI) continues to shape the field of genomics, but unprepared data can hamper scientific progress. Digital experts at the Wellcome Sanger Institute are optimising data workflows to fully leverage the power of AI in the Institute’s large-scale sequencing projects.
25 March 202510.8 min readIn recognition of Endometriosis Awareness Month, we caught up with Charlotte Cassie, Postdoctoral Fellow at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, to highlight the gap in endometriosis research and how our work at the Sanger Institute is helping to fill this in.
21 March 20259.1 min readFor 25 years, Nick Thomson has used genomics to unlock the secrets of how infectious diseases spread around the world. We sat down with Nick to discover his plans as the new Head of the Parasites and Microbes programme.
6 March 20259.7 min readFor the first time, researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute have sequenced rich genomic data from three birth cohort studies, which could unlock new insights into human health and disease.
28 February 20258.3 min readIn celebration of Rare Disease Day, we caught up with Matt Hurles, Director and Senior Group Leader at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, to reflect on the importance of raising awareness of rare diseases and how our work at the Institute is supporting this community by accelerating our progress in the genomics space.
17 February 20256.5 min readSyphilis may be known as the ‘forgotten disease’, but in reality, it is making a comeback as cases rise around the world. Researchers at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and their international collaborators in Africa are working to enhance existing syphilis datasets. Diversifying data can help enable the design of novel vaccines as well as detect and track the spread of the bacterium to prevent further transmission.
