Genetics archives go digital

5 May 2010

The Modern Genetics and its Foundations project, which began in January, will digitise up to half a million images from the Wellcome Library’s archival holdings.

It will focus on how the science of biological inheritance developed from the later 19th century onwards, and the growing understanding of its role in human health and disease during the 20th century.

The most important collection to be digitised is the substantial Francis Crick archive - nearly 300 boxes of scientific papers spanning Crick's DNA and neurobiology research, including draft articles and books, lectures, research notes, and extensive correspondence with Crick's scientific colleagues and the general public.

Other notable people and organisations include the papers of Fred Sanger (biochemist and double Nobel Prize winner), Arthur Ernest Mourant (haematologist and geneticist) and the Medical Research Council Blood Group.

Image: Sketch of the DNA double helix (1953) by Francis Crick. Credit: Wellcome Images