Wellcome Sanger Institute

11/08/2026

Ashleigh Williams’s route into genomics was not exactly straightforward – but following her curiosity led her to the Sanger Institute, where she now works with cutting-edge sequencing technologies.🧬

Ashleigh works across multiple sequencing platforms and supports researchers to generate high-quality data. In our latest blog, Ashleigh talks about her career journey, the excitement of working with new technologies and the opportunities she has found at Sanger.

Find out more here 👉 https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/08/11/world-class-science-one-sample-at-a-time/

05/08/2026

Scientists have uncovered new weak spots in cancer that could support the development of more effective therapies. 🧬

By creating a new bank of organoids, which are miniature versions of tumours grown from patient samples, researchers were able to study different cancers in ways that more closely reflect what happens in the human body.

Read about how this open resource will help scientists better understand how cancers develop and respond to treatment. 👇
https://www.sanger.ac.uk/news_item/new-biobank-of-tumour-models-reveals-cancers-weak-spots/

To find out more about how this organoid resource was built and how it could help shape the future of cancer research, read our latest blog ⤵️
https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/08/05/a-living-library-inside-our-organoid-biobank/

04/08/2026

Applications for the EMBL-EBI Sanger Postdoctoral (ESPOD) Programme are now open. What makes ESPOD unique? Just ask our current fellows. ⤵️

Leticia is combining expertise in reproductive biology, somatic mutations and clonal evolution to study endometrial stem cells. She says working across Sanger and EMBL-EBI provides the ideal environment for interdisciplinary research.

Ouli is investigating why Staphylococcus aureus carriage differs between people. By bringing together Sanger's unique biological resources with EMBL-EBI's computational expertise, he's able to answer research questions in entirely new ways.

If you're looking to combine experimental and computational science at two world-leading institutes, ESPOD could be the opportunity for you.

Applications close 27 September.

Learn more: https://www.ebi.ac.uk/research/postdocs/espods/

28/07/2026

As a child, Mark Blaxter spent hours reading animal encyclopaedias and exploring the natural world around him. Today, he leads the Sanger Institute's Tree of Life programme, helping to sequence the genomes of Earth's incredible biodiversity. 🌍

In our latest interview, Mark looks back on the experiences that shaped his career – from setting up a school biology club and developing a fascination with nematodes, to building the Tree of Life programme from scratch. Along the way, he reflects on the importance of collaboration, the remarkable advances in genome sequencing, and why writing remains an important part of his life, both as a scientist and as a poet. ✍️

Read the full interview here 👉 https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/07/28/i-stand-on-the-shoulders-of-giants-mark-blaxter-on-being-a-bookworm-building-a-programme-from-scratch-and-his-love-of-small-wiggly-creatures/

23/07/2026

The Big Butterfly Count is back! 🦋

The , led by the Butterfly Conservation, builds a picture of how UK butterflies and moths are doing from year-to-year.
You can get involved by spending 15 minutes in a sunny spot counting all the butterflies and day-flying moths you see.

But what can we learn from them?
Our own Sanger Institute butterfly and moth expert Charlotte Wright studies these insects by sequencing their DNA to reveal their evolutionary history. 🧬

Find out more below.🐛
https://sangerinstitute.blog/2025/12/11/five-questions-on-butterfly-and-moth-genomics-with-charlotte-wright/

Drawn to genomics like a moth to a flame, Wellcome Sanger Institute Postdoctoral Fellow, Dr Charlotte Wright, shares with us how she uses genomics to shed light on the evolutionary history of butterflies and moths, and how they might change in the future.

21/07/2026

Hair: it is on your body, it is in your shower drain... and it is home to microscopic mites.

Our latest blog explores six surprising facts about hair and the fascinating research happening at the Sanger Institute to understand how hair follicles develop. 💇

Warning: you may never think about your hair in quite the same way again.

Read more 👉 https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/07/21/six-things-you-may-not-know-about-hair/

20/07/2026

Early warning signs of drug resistance in parasitic worms have been revealed 📢

Scientists have identified genetic changes in the parasite that causes schistosomiasis that may reduce its response to praziquantel, the only widely available treatment for the disease. The findings could help safeguard this vital medicine as countries work to eliminate schistosomiasis.

The work was done in collaboration with The Royal Veterinary College (RVC) and collaborators.

Read more here 👇

Research provides insights into how the parasite that causes schistosomiasis is responding to decades of mass drug administration.

14/07/2026

Cholera is an ancient disease that continues to impact millions of people today. But what causes cholera, and why is it still a huge global health issue?

In our latest blog, Sanger Scientist Lia Bote answers these questions and explains how genomics (including her research) is helping to understand and stop the spread of the bacterium that causes this centuries-old disease. 🧬
Read here ⤵️

https://sangerinstitute.blog/2026/07/14/5-questions-on-cholera-with-lia-bote/

10/07/2026

Can we predict what cancer will do next, and develop ways to target its vulnerabilities at every stage? 🔎

That is what a new international initiative aims to do. PRECISE (Predictive Relationships Explaining Cancer Genetic Interactions and Synthetic Essentiality) combines experts in experimental biology, computational modelling, and AI to understand and predict genetic vulnerabilities in cancer tumours. 🧬

Involving researchers from 20 different institutes across 9 countries, including those at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and Human Technopole, PRECISE could speed up the discovery of therapeutic targets for tumours that currently lack actionable treatment options. 💊

A new international initiative aims to predict cancer vulnerabilities at scale across multiple tumour types to understand why these occur and accelerate the discovery of ways to target them.

10/07/2026

New genomic insights are helping to improve our understanding of how our genes shape development over time. 🧬

Researchers analysed DNA data from UK birth cohorts and found that rare DNA changes are most strongly linked to cognition in early childhood, while common DNA changes become more influential as children grow.

As more genomic data from long-running population studies become available, these resources will help researchers investigate how genetics influences health and development across life.

Read more here ⤵️

New study uncovers how genetics influence children’s cognitive ability as they age.