Human genome

Funding from the Wellcome Trust ensured that human genome sequence information was kept in the public domain.

The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute sequenced one-third of the human genome, as part of a worldwide partnership, the Human Genome Project.

This huge achievement will greatly enhance our ability to study the diseases that afflict people and animals.

The UK work was led by Sir John Sulston, founder director of the Sanger Institute, who argued strongly that sequence data should be released freely and as rapidly as possible.

Researchers all over the world can now access this information free of charge, a tremendous boost for global biomedical research.