The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute has announced plans to refine its scientific focus, building on its strengths in large-scale studies of the nature and impact of genetic variation.

Established in 1992, the Sanger Institute quickly became a world leader in high-throughput genome sequencing and analysis. With Allan Bradley taking over as Director in 2000, its emphasis shifted to large-scale studies to understand the function of the genome and its contribution to health and disease.

The new strategy will see an enhanced focus on the Sanger Institute's core strengths: large-scale studies of natural and engineered variation in genome sequence, in humans, pathogens and model organisms. Underpinning these major programmes will be the Institute's unique skills in informatics and high-throughput technologies such as sequencing and large-scale engineering of gene knockouts in the mouse.

The shift in strategy will see the work of five groups wound down, where research is peripheral to the new strategic focus. This decision, emphasised Dr Bradley, is a reflection only of strategic fit and not the scientific quality of the groups affected.

In 2005, the Sanger Institute was awarded £340 million funding by the Wellcome Trust for 2005–10. It also receives funding from a wide range of other bodies.

It is a major partner in the EU's €13m (£8.8m) EUCOMM initiative, which is creating conditional mutants in mouse genes. And in September 2006, it was awarded multimillion-pound support from the US National Institutes of Health as part of an international collaboration to produce knockout strains of mice across almost the entire mouse genome. The initiative will produce an invaluable community resource for researchers studying the role of genes in health and disease in this important model of human biology.

See also

• The Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute