Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute: archives

The following is an interim description which may change when detailed cataloguing takes place in future:

A small quantity of material transferred to the Wellcome Library from the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute. The collection consists of printed material produced by the Sanger Institute and audio-visual material.

c1994-2010

Uncatalogued: 5 transfer boxes, 1 oversize box, 1 folder and 9 digital items

The Sanger Centre was established in 1992 by the Wellcome Trust and the Medical Research Council to contribute to the international project to map and sequence the human genome and other smaller genomes. A charitable company called Genome Research Limited was formed with responsibility for the Centre and John Sulston was appointed as its first director.

In early 1993 the first members of staff started working on the chosen site at Hinxton, Cambridgeshire using the premises that already existed. The Centre was officially opened by Fred Sanger, after whom it was named, on 4 October 1993. The following year the European Bioinformatics Institute (EBI), an outstation of the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL), joined the Sanger Centre on the Campus at Hinxton. In 1996 both organisations moved into purpose-built accommodation on the site.

Since its formation the Sanger Centre, renamed as the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in 2001, has worked collaboratively and been a strong advocate of open data. The focus of its work has evolved over the years and the site has continued to grow. During the 1990s the focus of the Sanger Centre was the mapping and sequencing genomes. In June 2000 it was part of the joint announcement that the draft human genome had been completed, having contributed around one third of the completed human genome to the publicly-funded international sequencing effort. During the same year John Sulston stood down as director to be replaced by Allan Bradley, who started to move the focus away from sequencing by developing new research programmes. In turn, Bradley was replaced as director in 2010 by Michael Stratton, who started to move the Institute in the direction of translating its research into treatments for patients.

This collection is currently uncatalogued and cannot be ordered online. Requests to view uncatalogued material are considered on a case by case basis. Please contact collections@wellcomecollection.org for more details.

This material was held in the Sanger Institute library's archive collection. It was collected together by a former librarian, but there was no accompanying paperwork. During 2013-2014 the Sanger library moved as part of the Shared Services redevelopment and this material was donated to the Wellcome Library.