Sister act

The Hunt sisters, Sarah and Adrienne, offer a familial insight into their working lives on the Human Genome Project.

Sarah Hunt joined the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre in 1993, at a time when around 50 people moved to a temporary site at an old engineering works at Hinxton Hall. It was like a huge airline hanger and it was fondly referred to as the fish bowl: "The informatics offices ran along a corridor on one side above where all the sequencing teams worked and they could peer down," she recalls.

Almost eight years on, Sarah now works for the Human Genetics Computing Group at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre, having transferred from a team sequencing the human genome. Originally she was part of the yeast sequencing group and it was at this time her younger sister Adrienne first came to visit the Sanger from Newcastle University where she was reading biochemistry. Before graduation, a further visit to Hinxton for a summer job interview at the Sanger Centre amounted to an opportunity that landed her with a full-time post.

Over the years Adrienne's involvement with producing sequence data for the Human Genome Project progressed from work as a 'finisher' – resolving the gaps and ambiguities in raw sequence data to generate a finished product – to group leader. She is head of the team that conducted most of the finishing on chromosome 22, the first human chromosome to be completed. The team is in the midst of finishing chromosome 20.

Between them they have a good working knowledge of the sequencing operations at the Sanger Centre. Progress and development is clearly evident, with staff numbers having grown to more than 600. "If you compare how it was three to four years ago never mind seven, the resources have improved and the technical side has come on leaps and bounds," Adrienne says. "Computer programs have been written to automate tasks that were once semi-manual," Sarah adds, "for example, there’s now a program that analyses data taken from the sequencing machines and there's an automated tracking system that allows bulk processing of data in a centralised unit."

At one stage the sisters worked for the same human sequencing team, but the experience did not tarnish their relationship. "We get on so well," Adrienne says. "Some people at the Sanger Centre seem to find this strange but to us it's not that odd." However, there is one drawback, and that comes from living together: "The problem is that we tend to take work home," Sarah explains, "but there are certain benefits.” For example, Sarah's involvement in computer programming – to provide data analysis, automation and storage for the human genetics groups – means that she deals with specific data destined for Adrienne's team. During their impromptu chats at home, discussions over work issues invariably help Adrienne. "You save time basically, as you know who to contact and, if things have moved, you know where to track it down," she explains.

On 12 February 2001, the media excitement surrounding the unveiling of the human genome in London proved to be equally as monumental for staff at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Centre. But science never stands still, and Adrienne is now planning the next big coordination, when her team will be looking after the 'finishing' for the sequencing of the zebrafish genome. Meanwhile, Sarah continues working on data related to the SNP Consortium genotyping project and gene identification projects for biologists in the human genetics group. No doubt discussions will continue across the breakfast table – proof that genetics really is a family affair.

External links

The Wellcome Trust Genome Campus
Team 45 : Finishing. Adrienne Hunt, Team leader at the Sanger Centre.
Human Genetics Group. Sarah Hunt, Human Genetics Computing Group .

Sister act

See also

External links

Further reading